while in production, deploy static files, but style changes aren't visible if we don't clean pub/static folder first

Question

We are making style changes while working in developer mode.

Then we push the files to our server which is in production.

Then we run $ magento setup:static-content:deploy en_GB

but the changes aren't showing.

If we first delete folders in pub/static and then run $ magento setup:static-content:deploy en_GB then the changes are showing up.

What command can we run on our production server to first clean the pub/static folder? I don't think it is safe to run rm -rf pub/static/* every time we push to production

Answer 1

I've found out that if you run

php bin/magento cache:flush
grunt clean

first and then

magento setup:static-content:deploy en_GB 

it will work, but that's not ideal, as you don't need grunt on your production server.

I would prefer a magento command if someone can post an answer.