allow empty commits (#948)

Author: oscarlevin

.github/workflows/deploy-stable.yml

@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ jobs:
           git add pyproject.toml
           git commit -m "bump version to next patch level for nightly releases"
           git add pretext/resources/resource_hash_table.json
-          git commit -m "commit changes to resource_hash_table.json"
+          git commit --allow-empty -m "commit changes to resource_hash_table.json"
           git push -f --set-upstream origin ${{ env.VERSION }}-deploy
           gh pr create --fill
           gh pr merge -s -d -t "Update changelog and bump version to next patch level for nightly releases"