How to Create a Jekyll Website

Set up Jekyll and Minimal Mistakes

This website uses Jekyll with Minimal Mistakes as a remote theme. I assume that you have a GitHub account, are familiar with Git, and want to create a GitHub Pages website.

Create a repository named USERNAME.github.io, replacing USERNAME with your GitHub username. Instead of copying the theme files into the project, reference a pinned theme version in _config.yml:

remote_theme: "mmistakes/minimal-mistakes@4.28.0"

plugins:
  - jekyll-remote-theme

Add the Jekyll and theme dependencies to your Gemfile, then install them with Bundler. For local development, run:

bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve --livereload

For the complete theme setup and configuration options, see the Minimal Mistakes quick-start guide and configuration documentation.

You can also use my _config.yml as a reference.

Create the content

Navigation is defined in _data/navigation.yml. See my navigation file for an example.

Create Markdown files in _pages for standalone pages and in _posts for dated posts. My pages provide examples of the page structure.