Using GitHub Pages to Build Your Jekyll Site

Using Jekyll with GitHub Pages

GitHub can handle building your Jekyll site without the need of Forestry or a CI tool. GitHub will build your Jekyll site each time a new commit is pushed to GitHub and serve it automatically.

Limitations

When using GitHub to build your GitHub Pages site, you are restricted to using the white-listed GitHub Pages Jekyll version and plugins.

To build your site with no limitations, and use any plugin, use GitHub Actions.

Getting Started

This requires the GitHub pages gem. Enable it by adding the following line to your Gemfile:

gem "github-pages", group: :jekyll_plugins

Next, head over to the Settings page of your repository in GitHub, and scroll down to GitHub Pages. Set the Source option to “master branch” and click Save.

Note the URL listed at the top of the GitHub Pages settings. This is the URL that your GitHub Pages site will be served from.

Your Jekyll site will now be re-built by GitHub each time a commit is pushed to your repository.

Troubleshooting

Your _config.yml file must reside in the root of your repository for GitHub Pages to build your site.

Last updated on June 11, 2020

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