Feature request: create orphan branch and allow empty commits?

[zkamvar]

I'm wondering if it's possible to incorporate this pattern into {gert} in some form (or if it's already possible and I'm just being a numpty)

git checkout --orphan gh-pages
git rm -rf --quiet .
git commit --allow-empty -m 'Initial gh-pages commit'

[jennybc]

Not entirely sure what your motivation is @zkamvar but depending on context you might be able to do what usethis:::create_gh_pages_branch() does:

https://github.com/r-lib/usethis/blob/cd86132a0e2c5de54cc9c5e3199c075a369bbf00/R/pkgdown.R#L150-L173

Presumably you want it for GitHub-related reasons. In which case you could create it first (or only?) on GitHub.

[zkamvar]

That's pretty much precisely what I want to do! Thank you :)