Ask HN: What should we call the pattern of polling and rebuilding a static site?

Here’s the pattern:

1. I have a static site.

2. A GitHub Actions workflow periodically polls a remote source for changes.

3. When a change is detected, the workflow updates a specific page or content in the site.

4. The entire site is rebuilt and redeployed.

This involves a full rebuild and redeployment whenever changes are detected. It can be quite handy for creating a read-only dynamic page within a static site. However, it’s hard to discuss it without a name for the pattern.

It’s not Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) because it regenerates the whole site, not just specific parts. This is much simpler and easier to implement than ISR.

What should we call this? Two names that come to mind are:

- Reactive Static Generation - Event-Driven Static Rebuild