Git Gateway with Netlify

[jamestagal]

Hi @jimafisk

It came to my attention via a developer in the community I am in that they were using Netlify's Git Gateway as a way to connect your site to a Git provider’s API allowing tools such as a CMS to work with content, branches, and pull requests on your users’ behalf.

They were using it with an 11ty site with Decap as the CMS. I wondered whether this could be possible with Plenti's CMS?

If this were possible with Plenti then the CI/CD pipeline process might have to be done in Netlify? I'm not sure.

One advantage I can see with this approach would possibly be a nicer way to add clients who need to get access to the CMS with Google logins. The client just gets an invite via email and can then just log in. You can have 5 users per site. They can save and it commits to the main branch just like we currently do with Plenti/Gitlab/CI/CD.

It looks like it uses JSON Web Tokens. I don't know if that is compatible with how Plenti is setup currently.
Here a couple of screenshots in Netlify:

It would be great to know whether this would be possible with Plenti.

BTW. Here is the repo on Github
https://github.com/netlify/git-gateway

Cheers,
Ben

[StudioGonzcat]

Hey, I have recently been exploring Plenti and have had @jamestagal helping me which has been amazing.

I brought up this query to him as I love what Plenti is doing and how powerful it can be, I would just love if the build and CMS capabilities were more plug and play like mentioned above.

Thanks for all your hard work so far @jimafisk, what you have made is great!

[jimafisk]

If this were possible with Plenti then the CI/CD pipeline process might have to be done in Netlify? I'm not sure.

I'm not positive either, but I think you could still use GitLab's CI. I would love to plugin to Netlify's CI directly, however last time I checked they don't actually have a proper CI system that can reference specific images. Instead they use a giant, Netlify maintained image that only has software available that they install at whatever version they last installed. See details here for reference: https://youtu.be/TmWIeUOsERY?si=8vyC5t6SYXOgCJSj&t=225

One advantage I can see with this approach would possibly be a nicer way to add clients who need to get access to the CMS with Google logins

That makes sense, there are other ways to allow for OAuth login to edit Plenti sites as well. We're using PocketBase to facilitate this at the moment for some clients. That would lift any restrictions / fees that Netlify charges for something like this, but you'd have to self-host.

You can have 5 users per site

Is this a limit Netlify is imposing or is it getting passed on from the repo provider? I know GitLab has a free tier that allows 5 users in a group, but after that their pricing goes up quite drastically (that's why my company runs its own Gitea instance for our Plenti sites)

It would be great to know whether this would be possible with Plenti.

Something like this should be possible, ultimately it's a question of priorities. It sounds like the major advantage is that you'd get access to Netlify's OAuth set up for things like using Google logins for editing the website. In the meantime there are other ways to accomplish that using less restrictive platforms like PocketBase - I can try to put together some examples of how to do this (ultimately I'd like a seamless integration you could do via plenti.json). I'm definitely not against adding Git Gateway support, but I would probably still want to prioritize releasing Gitea CMS support (#271) and maybe even BitBucket CMS support (#280) first since that would open up Plenti to entirely new platforms. Does that make sense? Thank you both for the suggestion and feedback!

[jamestagal]

Hi @jimafisk
Thanks for your thoughts and considerations on this one.

Is this a limit Netlify is imposing or is it getting passed on from the repo provider?

I had a look but it wasn't clear to be honest but it does seem to be a Netlify limit. So I believe that the Netlify Identity service only allows 5 invite-only users in the free tier and 1.000 users if registration is open to anyone.

... like PocketBase. I can try to put together some examples of how to do this.

I'd love to see some examples and I'm sure others would appreciate it too 😁

It's great to explore the possibilities re expanding Plenti's features & capabilities and I look forward to seeing Gitea CMS support.

Thanks again for your help, Jim.

Regards,
Ben