explaingit

daattali/beautiful-jekyll

★ 5,801HTMLAudience · generalComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

TLDR

A ready-made Jekyll website theme you can deploy to GitHub Pages for free in minutes by forking the repo, renaming it, and filling in a config file.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((beautiful-jekyll))
    What it does
      Website template
      Blog ready
      Free hosting
    Setup
      Fork repo
      Rename repo
      Edit config
    Features
      Blog posts
      Comments
      Search
      Analytics
    Audience
      Personal sites
      Project pages
      Bloggers
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Code map

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Launch a personal blog or portfolio in minutes by forking the repo and editing a single config file.

USE CASE 2

Add tags, cover photos, and keyword search to a static blog without writing any front-end code.

USE CASE 3

Integrate Google Analytics and a comment system into a GitHub Pages site using built-in config options.

USE CASE 4

Create a project page for an open-source library with mobile-responsive styling out of the box.

Tech stack

JekyllHTMLCSSMarkdown

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

In plain English

Beautiful Jekyll is a website template that lets you create a personal site, blog, or simple project page without writing code from scratch. It is built on top of Jekyll, a tool that turns plain text files into a static website, and is designed to be hosted for free on GitHub Pages. The author estimates that you can have a working website running within a few minutes. The setup process involves three steps: fork the repository to your own GitHub account, rename it to match your GitHub username, and edit a configuration file to fill in your name, site title, and other preferences. GitHub Pages then builds and publishes the site automatically every time you make a change. The theme includes a range of features out of the box. Blog posts can have tags, full-width cover photos, and thumbnails. An RSS feed is generated automatically. You can add a comments section to any page using one of several supported services, including Disqus, GitHub Discussions via giscus, or others. A search button lets visitors find pages by keyword. The theme also includes built-in support for connecting to Google Analytics or similar tracking tools. Beautiful Jekyll is designed to look good on both desktop and mobile screens. It has been used by over 50,000 sites since 2015. The theme is free to use, and there is an optional paid plan that removes a footer attribution link, adds a dark mode skin, and includes access to the author for help. Content is written in Markdown, a lightweight text format that is easier to work with than HTML. The template ships with sample posts and pages to help you get started.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I forked beautiful-jekyll and renamed it to match my GitHub username. Walk me through editing _config.yml to set my name, site title, avatar, and social links.
Prompt 2
Add a new blog post to my beautiful-jekyll site with a full-width cover photo and two tags, show the front matter and file naming convention.
Prompt 3
Enable giscus comments on my beautiful-jekyll blog, what values do I need to add to _config.yml?
Prompt 4
How do I add a custom page like an About or Portfolio page to beautiful-jekyll without breaking the theme layout?
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