CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

Project Overview

This is an academic personal website built with Jekyll using the academicpages template (forked from Minimal Mistakes theme). It’s deployed via GitHub Pages and features collections for research, teaching, talks, and portfolio items.

Development Commands

Local Development

# Install dependencies
bundle install

# Serve site locally at localhost:4000 with live reload
bundle exec jekyll serve

# Clean build directory
bundle clean

Note: If you encounter errors with bundle install, delete Gemfile.lock and try again.

Development Configuration

• _config.yml - Main site configuration
• _config.dev.yml - Development-specific overrides

Architecture

Jekyll Collections

The site uses Jekyll collections to organize academic content:

• _research/ - Research papers and publications
• _talks/ - Conference talks and presentations
• _teaching/ - Teaching materials and courses
• _portfolio/ - Portfolio projects
• _posts/ - Blog posts
• _drafts/ - Draft posts (not published)

Each collection has default front matter settings defined in _config.yml under the defaults section.

Layout System

• _layouts/ - Page templates (default, single, talk, archive, etc.)
• _includes/ - Reusable components (header, footer, author-profile, etc.)
• _sass/ - SCSS stylesheets

Content Organization

• _pages/ - Static pages (about, CV, contacts, etc.)
• _data/navigation.yml - Site navigation menu configuration
• _data/ui-text.yml - Internationalization text strings
• files/ - Static files (PDFs, documents) accessible at /files/filename.pdf
• images/ - Image assets

Markdown Generation

The markdown_generator/ directory contains tools to bulk-generate collection items from structured data:

Python scripts:

• publications.py - Generate _publications/ from publications.tsv
• talks.py - Generate _talks/ from talks.tsv
• pubsFromBib.py - Generate publications from BibTeX files

Jupyter notebooks:

• publications.ipynb - Interactive version of publications.py with documentation
• talks.ipynb - Interactive version of talks.py with documentation
• PubsFromBib.ipynb - Interactive BibTeX converter

These scripts read TSV files with structured data (title, date, venue, etc.) and create individual markdown files with proper front matter for each item.

Configuration Files

• _config.yml - Primary site configuration including:
  • Site metadata (title, description, URL)
  • Author information and social links
  • Jekyll settings (markdown processor, plugins, permalinks)
  • Collection definitions
  • Default front matter values
  • Analytics and SEO settings

Theme Customization

This site uses a customized version of Minimal Mistakes. Key customization points:

• Author profile in _includes/author-profile.html
• Custom archive layouts in _includes/archive-single*.html
• Site navigation in _includes/masthead.html

Working with Content

Adding New Content

1. Create markdown files in the appropriate collection directory (_research/, _talks/, etc.)
2. Include required front matter (layout, title, date, permalink)
3. Follow existing content files as templates

Using Markdown Generators

For bulk content creation:

1. Edit the TSV file in markdown_generator/ with your data
2. Run the corresponding Python script: python markdown_generator/talks.py
3. Or open the Jupyter notebook for interactive use
4. Generated markdown files will be created in the appropriate collection directory

Modifying Navigation

Edit _data/navigation.yml to add/remove menu items in the site header.

Updating Author Profile

Modify the author section in _config.yml to change bio, avatar, and social links.