Starting a github pages site from an existing project

If you already have a project and want to create a github-pages branch to start writing documentation, I find it best to start out with a clean branch with no history. Here's how you do it:

git checkout master
git checkout --orphan github-pages

This gives you a clean branch, but preserves the working files in your directory. Run this command to remove them:

git rm -rf .

Now you can

jekyll new .

Add a new .gitignore file (for _site, node_modules etc.). Also, be sure to exclude any dirs like node_modules or bower_components that may be hanging around from your project's master branch, or else Jekyll will watch + build them. (docs).

Next time you push, your docs site will be up and running!