2.5 KiB
| title | description | date | tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hugo RSS feed generation issue when running in CI | Normal services resume after disruption | 2025-04-28 |
|
Introduction
I just fixed an RSS feed generation that first started a month ago after migrating the CI job that builds my blog from a git hook in Gitolite to a workflow in Forgejo actions.
The issue
I only realized this issue after not seeing yesterday's article pop in my miniflux. It puzzled me when I realized that the XML index file was empty of any articles on the hosting server. I immediately checked the Forgejo actions workflow logs, but they did not show any error nor warning. Whatever was failing just failed silently.
Solving the issue
I worked around the issue quickly by building the website locally on my workstation and seeing the XML index file properly populated. I redeployed this version of the website and refreshed my miniflux feed: it worked.
I first theorized that I might be missing a build dependency on my Forgejo runners. It was disproved when connecting over SSH to the runner that ran the last build: cloning and building the website there produced a valid XML index file once again.
I then added a sleep statement before the deployment step in the workflow file
and pushed a commit so that I could inspect a CI run in progress. I manged to
SSH on the runner, find my way to the temporary build directory and reproduce
the issue there: whatever was happening was not intermittent.
I therefore squinted my eyes a bit at the workflow and saw the
actions/checkout step that innocuously starts all GitHub or Forgejo actions
workflow. Having been bitten by this in the past, I knew it performed a shallow
git clone by default so I followed my instinct to try a deep clone instead: this
fixed the issue.
With this information, I checked Hugo's documentation and figured I had to set
enableGitInfo = false in my config.toml file. When enabled, Hugo uses git to
figure out the last modification date of a file and this breaks the RSS feeds.
Though I did not use git information anywhere in my templates, this still affected the logic that filters which articles show up in the feed. This particular configuration flag was a remnant from before [I wrote my own Hugo theme]({{< ref "ditching-the-heavy-hugo-theme.md" >}}): The theme I used once upon a time required this flag.
Conclusion
I was disappointed that Hugo could fail silently on such trivial thing, but alas it was easy to solve.