Why doesn't the action delete files on the WPE destination server?

[kmaling]

I just spent three hours dealing with support trying to figure out why a basic GIT workflow wasn't working. I was able to push changes/new files from my local environment to the GitHub repo and then have them deployed to the WPE (development) server via the GitHub action, but none of the files that were deleted using the same workflow were deleted on the WPE server, leaving a bunch of orphaned files on the server, now outside of GIT. In the end, support said I needed to add the following flags:

FLAGS: -azvr --exclude-from=.deployignore --itemize-changes --delete

First, it's kinda weird that this action is just using rsync to sync the GitHub repo to the WPE server (instead of using GIT); but, ignoring that, what's the point of the "simple" example if it doesn't remove files from the destination? I assume anyone coming here for this script must be using GIT, and would expect the action to, well, extend GIT from the repo to the WPE server? But that's not what's happening.

The WPE site makes it sound like they support GIT workflows, have integrated dev-staging-production environments, etc., but in reality, GIT support is barely functional, and the connection between dev-staging-production is non-existent (and you "move" data between environments, including content, by literally doing backups and restores between the environments?!) I feel like I must be missing something...