Copycat is a tool for synchronizing files between repositories.

It can:

• create a web server,
• listen to requests,
• parse GitHub webhooks,
• create pull requests to the target repository with the changes from the source repository

You can use Copycat to:

• synchronize documentation between project repository and documentation repository
• share code between multiple projects
• connect a monorepo to a project's own repository

These instructions will get you Copycat up and running on your local machine

To run Copycat, you will need node.js > 7.10.

Copy config.json.tpl as config.json and update config:

• token – Github account's token you want to use for synchronization
• userAgent – it will be used in requests to Github API
• syncAccountName – the name of the account used for synchronization
• syncFiles – an array of objects with the sync config

A sample config.json:

{
    "token": "xxx",
    "userAgent": "Copycat-Docs-Synchronizer",
    "syncAccountName": "livechat-docs-synchronizer",
    "pullRequestBranchPrefix": "update-libs-",
    "syncFiles": [
        {
            "from": {
                "owner": "livechat",
                "repo": "copycat",
                "path": "lib/"
            },
            "to": {
                "owner": "livechat",
                "repo": "copycat-lib-only",
                "path": "lib/"
            },
            "refsMap": {
                "labs": "labs",
                "master": "master"
            }
        }
    ]
}

To start Copycat, run npm run start

To test Copycat, you'll need to expose your local server (created by Copycat with the npm run start command) to public and add a webhook to your GitHub repository.

To expose the local server, you can use ngrok. A detailed description is available in the Configuring Your Server section in the GitHub documentation.

./ngrok http 3081

Next, set up github to send webook requests to your local machine.

1. Copy the address created by ngrok:

2. Paste it to your GitHub webhook settings:

The easiest way to deploy Copycat is to use a "node as a service" provider (AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Heroku or Zeit).

After the deployment, add a webhook to your GitHub repository

1. Go to your repository’s Settings > Webhooks > Add webhook
2. Paste there the URL of your deployed service, e.g. https://copycat.example.org/webhook/push

Fix destination directory

First public Release

Konrad Kruk / LiveChat

Mateusz Burzyński / LiveChat

This project is licensed under the MIT License