Manual SSH deployments are technical debt.

We want this:

git push origin main → website auto-updates

The Deployment Flow

graph LR
    A[git push to main] --> B[GitHub Actions triggered]
    B --> C[SSH into VPS]
    C --> D[git pull origin main]
    D --> E[Reload Nginx]
    E --> F[Site updated]

Step 1 — Prepare Your Website Repo

Your repo should look like:

.
├── index.html
├── assets/
└── ...

Step 2 — Create Deployment User (Recommended)

On your VPS:

adduser deploy
usermod -aG sudo deploy

Give ownership of the website directory:

chown -R deploy:deploy /var/www/rayeen.in

Step 3 — Setup SSH Key for GitHub Actions

On VPS (as the deploy user):

su - deploy
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "github-deploy"

Copy the public key:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Add this key to:

GitHub → Repo → Settings → Deploy Keys → Add Key

Enable Allow write access.

Step 4 — Add Private Key to GitHub Secrets

Copy the private key:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

In GitHub, go to Settings → Secrets → Actions → New Secret and add:

Step 5 — Create GitHub Action

Create .github/workflows/deploy.yml:

name: Deploy Website

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Deploy to VPS
        uses: appleboy/ssh-action@master
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.VPS_HOST }}
          username: ${{ secrets.VPS_USER }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
          script: |
            cd /var/www/rayeen.in
            git pull origin main
            sudo systemctl reload nginx

Now every push to main triggers an automatic deployment.

What We Achieved

• No manual uploads or SSH-into-server deployments
• Secure SSH-based deployment via ed25519 keys
• Auto reload of Nginx on every push
• Infrastructure defined as a workflow

This is CI/CD ownership.