A couple of helpers for capistrano deploys

deploy.rb

#Speeds up deployment by creating a copy of the project on the server,
set :deploy_via, :remote_cache

task :run_branch_check do
  branches_available
  check_for_deployment_branch
end

before "deploy", "run_branch_check"
before "deploy:long", "run_branch_check"

def check_for_deployment_branch
  return if self[:branch] && branches.include?(self[:branch])
  puts "*************************************************************************************"
  puts "BRANCHES"
  puts "*************************************************************************************"  
  puts branches
  puts "*************************************************************************************"
  self[:branch] = Capistrano::CLI.ui.ask("Please enter the branch name which you want to deploy :")
  check_for_deployment_branch
end

def branches_available
  branches = []
  branches =  %x[git ls-remote --heads origin | cut -f2 | cut -d"/" -f3].split("\n")
  set :branches, branches
end