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 for Zehao Wang (Ph.D. candidate @ Duke University) built with Jekyll and the AcademicPages template (forked from Minimal Mistakes theme). The site is automatically deployed via GitHub Pages at https://ren365.github.io.

Build Commands

# Install Ruby dependencies
bundle install

# Start local development server with live reload (localhost:4000)
bundle exec jekyll liveserve

# Alternative: use dev config (disables analytics, uses localhost URL)
bundle exec jekyll serve --config _config.yml,_config.dev.yml

# Build for production
bundle exec jekyll build

# Minify JavaScript (requires npm install first)
npm run build:js

Note: After editing _config.yml, you must restart the Jekyll server for changes to take effect.

Architecture

Content Collections

Jekyll collections organize different content types, each in their own directory:

_publications/ - Academic papers
_talks/ - Presentations and conferences
_teaching/ - Teaching experience
_portfolio/ - Project showcases
_posts/ - Blog posts (date-named: YYYY-MM-DD-title.md)
_pages/ - Main site pages (about, publications, research, etc.)

Each content file uses YAML front matter for metadata (layout, title, date, permalink, etc.).

Layout Hierarchy

compress.html → default.html → single.html / talk.html / archive.html

Key Directories

_includes/ - Reusable template fragments (author-profile, navigation, footer)
_layouts/ - Page layout templates
_sass/ - SCSS stylesheets (modular: _variables.scss for colors/typography)
_data/ - Site data files (navigation.yml for menu structure)
assets/ - Compiled CSS, JS, and fonts
images/ - Site images and profile photos
files/ - Downloadable files (PDFs, documents)

Content Generation Tools

The markdown_generator/ directory contains Python scripts (.py) and Jupyter notebooks (.ipynb) to convert TSV data into markdown files:

publications.py / publications.ipynb - Convert publications.tsv to markdown files
talks.py / talks.ipynb - Convert talks.tsv to markdown files
pubsFromBib.py / PubsFromBib.ipynb - Import publications from BibTeX format

Configuration

Main configuration is in _config.yml:

Site metadata and author info
Collection definitions and default layouts
Markdown processing (Kramdown with GFM)
Jekyll plugins (paginate, sitemap, gist, feed, redirect_from)

Development overrides are in _config.dev.yml (disables analytics, uses localhost URL).

Edit _data/navigation.yml to modify the main site menu.

Zehao Wang