---
title: "Monorepo Deploy Script — Subdirectory .git Check Pitfall"
aliases: [monorepo-git-pull, deploy-script-monorepo, git-pull-monorepo]
tags: [monorepo, git, bash, deploy, devops]
sources:
  - "daily/2026-04-16.md"
created: 2026-04-16
updated: 2026-04-16
---

# Monorepo Deploy Script — Subdirectory .git Check Pitfall

A deploy script written for a multi-repo setup (separate git repos for backend and frontend) will silently fail to pull new code when the project is converted to a monorepo. The script checks for `.git` in subdirectories that don't exist in a monorepo, never finds them, skips the `git pull`, and exits successfully — leaving the server running old code with no warning.

## Key Points

- **Silent failure**: the script exits 0 even though `git pull` never ran — nothing in stdout indicates the problem
- The symptom: running `scripts/deploy.sh` reports success, but the server is still running the old version
- **Fix**: in a monorepo, `git pull` runs once at the repo root — remove all subdirectory `.git` checks
- The warning message (if the script emitted one) is easy to miss in CI/CD output or when tailing logs
- Multi-repo scripts often check `backend/.git` and `frontend/.git` to determine if each component needs to be pulled separately

## Details

### The Anti-Pattern

```bash
# scripts/deploy.sh — written for multi-repo, broken in monorepo

if [ -d "backend/.git" ]; then
    echo "Pulling backend..."
    cd backend && git pull && cd ..
fi

if [ -d "frontend/.git" ]; then
    echo "Pulling frontend..."
    cd frontend && git pull && cd ..
fi

# In a monorepo: neither condition is true → git pull never runs
# Script exits 0 anyway → deploy "succeeds" with stale code
```

### The Fix

```bash
# scripts/deploy.sh — monorepo version

set -e
ROOT_DIR="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")/.." && pwd)"
cd "$ROOT_DIR"

echo "Pulling latest code..."
git pull

echo "Rebuilding backend..."
cd backend && pip install -r requirements.txt && cd ..

echo "Rebuilding frontend..."
cd frontend && npm ci && npm run build && cd ..

echo "Restarting services..."
systemctl restart myapp-backend
systemctl reload nginx
```

One `git pull` at the root covers all subdirectories in a monorepo.

### Detecting the Problem

If a deploy claims success but the running version doesn't match the expected commit:

```bash
# On the server — check what commit is actually running
git log -1 --oneline

# Compare with what should be deployed
git fetch origin main
git log -1 --oneline origin/main
```

If they differ after a "successful" deploy, the deploy script didn't actually pull.

### Coexisting Deploy Scripts

Repositories that transitioned from multi-repo to monorepo sometimes have two deploy scripts:
- `full-deploy.sh` — the original multi-repo script (potentially still working for other components)
- `scripts/deploy.sh` — the active script that was incorrectly carried over

Always identify which script is actually invoked by the CI/CD system or cron job before modifying.

## Related Concepts

- [[wiki/concepts/shell-static-deploy-patterns]] — broader deploy script patterns including cp pitfalls and web server reload
- [[wiki/concepts/fastapi-mongodb-role-migration]] — the feature deployed in the same session where this bug was found
- [[wiki/architecture/_index]] — Docker Compose deployment patterns used alongside these scripts

## Sources

- [[daily/2026-04-16.md]] — `scripts/deploy.sh` in Ford QC web app discovered checking `backend/.git` and `frontend/.git`; monorepo never matched; fixed to `git pull` at root