diff --git a/.github/workflows/publish-github-pages.yml b/.github/workflows/publish-github-pages.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7ff0226f6e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/publish-github-pages.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+# based on https://github.com/actions/starter-workflows/blob/main/pages/hugo.yml
+name: Deploy site to Pages
+
+on:
+  # Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab
+  workflow_dispatch:
+
+# Sets permissions of the GITHUB_TOKEN to allow deployment to GitHub Pages
+permissions:
+  contents: read
+  pages: write
+  id-token: write
+
+# Allow only one concurrent deployment, skipping runs queued between the run in-progress and latest queued.
+# However, do NOT cancel in-progress runs as we want to allow these production deployments to complete.
+concurrency:
+  group: "pages"
+  cancel-in-progress: false
+
+# Default to bash
+defaults:
+  run:
+    shell: bash
+
+jobs:
+  # Build job
+  build:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - name: Install dependencies
+        run: |
+          sudo apt update
+          sudo apt -y install libxml2 libxml2-utils libxslt1.1 xsltproc docbook-xsl docbook-xsl-ns docbook-xsl-doc-html tidy make
+      - name: Checkout
+        uses: actions/checkout@v4
+      - name: Setup Pages
+        id: pages
+        uses: actions/configure-pages@v5
+      - name: Build
+        run: |
+          pwd
+          echo $default-branch
+          make
+      - name: Upload artifact
+        uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v3
+        with:
+          path: /home/runner/public_html/glfs
+
+  # Deployment job
+  deploy:
+    environment:
+      name: github-pages
+      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    needs: build
+    steps:
+      - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
+        id: deployment
+        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4
diff --git a/git-version.sh b/git-version.sh
index e5919794e7..4e292cb62d 100755
--- a/git-version.sh
+++ b/git-version.sh
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ esac
 
 full_date="$month $day$suffix, $year"
 
-sha="$(git describe --abbrev=1)"
+sha="$(git describe --abbrev=1 --always)"
 version=$(echo "$sha" | sed 's/-g[^-]*$//')
 
 if [ "$(git diff HEAD | wc -l)" != "0" ]; then