OK, assembled geniuses of the hivemind. IHAQ:

My website is currently developed locally, as a clone of a github repo. When I want to publish something, I sync to github, and there is a webhook at the live site that pulls the changes in. Currently, the whole site is synced (with the exception of a few files that are in gitignore). This does sometimes lead to problems, when I make local changes that I do not want synched, for example debugging type things. It's a hassle, but I can deal.

However, I have been advised that a better workflow would be to sync just one folder /user and everything in it, rather than the whole site. And I don't know how to do that without losing everything else.

If I add everything else to gitignore, they'll be deleted from the production site. I can re-upload, but that seems like a bore (although I'll only have to do it once).

Is there a better solution? Could I, for example, create a new repo of just the /user folder and its contents, and sync only that? Even remove the previous repo from my local site entirely?

Would the webhook still work to pull in everything in the /user folder, or is it tied to a specific repo?

Any guidance gratefully accepted.