My git post-receive hook for Digital Ocean -- I make a bare repo in /var/repos/{reponame}/app.git and then add this code to the post-receive hook in app.git/hooks then set up a remote via ssh to the app.git folder

post-receive.sh

#!/bin/sh

# Store git files in a different directory than the repo
git --work-tree=/var/www/meatspace-markov-memeify --git-dir=/var/repos/meatspace-markov-memeify/app.git checkout -f

# Install npm deps
cd /var/www/meatspace-markov-memeify && npm install

# If index.js is running, restart--otherwise start!
forever restart --spinSleepTime 10000 --minUptime 1000 /var/www/meatspace-markov-memeify/index.js --port=8000 || forever start --spinSleepTime 10000 --minUptime 1000 /var/www/meatspace-markov-memeify/index.js --port=8000

# If listen.js is running, restart--otherwise start!
forever restart --spinSleepTime 10000 --minUptime 1000 /var/www/meatspace-markov-memeify/listen.js || forever start --spinSleepTime 10000 --minUptime 1000 /var/www/meatspace-markov-memeify/listen.js

Starting to think I should keep the forever stuff written in my repo so i can edit it and push changes. Hmm yeah prolly.

What is your development/deployment workflow with digitalocean apps like this? Do you develop locally and then push to a development server (on port 3000) for test features and only conditionally push up to a production server? Would love some insight into this, any articles, personal experience greatly appreciated. Thanks.