Need to clarify docs about a hidden GitHub pages requirement on private repository

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe

I created a new repo and use this action to publish to the gh-pages branch but the repo’s supposed GitHub page returned a 404 even after choosing gh-pages branch from the dropdown in the repo’s GitHub pages setting.

I contacted GitHub support about this and their response was

In order to be built and published for the very first time, a GitHub Pages repository must have a commit pushed to it by a user with admin permissions for the repository. In this case, it looks like while you committed to the master branch, the only commit pushed to the gh-pages branch was from github-actions.

Following this tip fixed my problem.

Describe the solution you’d like

Add an explanation to the docs. The easiest solution would be for the user to push any content under their own account to the gh-pages branch and after that this action can take over the publishing.

Describe alternatives you’ve considered

There’s no alternatives. This seems to be a GitHub requirement.

Additional context

[letmaik]

I had the same issue. On a new repository, I followed the two-step instructions but it was impossible to get it deployed. The only way out was to manually push a commit to gh-pages. And after that the automatic deploys worked.

[sl4m]

Glad I found this issue. I was having trouble with a private repo myself and found that pushing a manual commit to gh-pages branch solved the problem as suggested.

@peaceiris If you need some help with the README for this particular issue, let me know