CLAUDE.md

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

Project Overview

Academic personal website for Renping Li (renpingli.com), built with Jekyll. Forked from AcademicPages template (derived from Minimal Mistakes theme). Hosted on GitHub Pages with custom domain configured via CNAME.

Build & Development Commands

# Install Ruby dependencies (delete Gemfile.lock first if errors occur)
bundle install

# Local dev server with live reload at localhost:4000
bundle exec jekyll liveserve

# Dev server with development config overrides (expanded SASS, no analytics)
bundle exec jekyll serve --config _config.yml,_config.dev.yml

# Rebuild minified JavaScript (after editing assets/js/)
npm run build:js

# Generate publication/talk markdown from TSV data
cd markdown_generator && python publications.py
cd markdown_generator && python talks.py

Note: _config.yml is NOT auto-reloaded by jekyll serve; restart the server after config changes.

Architecture

Jekyll static site with four collections defined in _config.yml:

_publications/ — research papers (generated from markdown_generator/publications.tsv)
_talks/ — presentations (generated from markdown_generator/talks.tsv)
_teaching/ — course materials
_portfolio/ — research projects

Content pipeline: TSV files → Python scripts in markdown_generator/ → Markdown with YAML front matter → Jekyll builds to _site/.

Template hierarchy: _layouts/ (7 layouts, default.html is base) → _includes/ (36 partials) → _sass/ (SCSS styles). Key layout: single.html handles most page rendering.

Main pages live in _pages/ — the landing page is about.md. Navigation is configured in _data/navigation.yml.

Static files (CV PDF, profile images, slides) go in files/. Site images go in images/.

Key Configuration

_config.yml — all site settings, collection definitions, author metadata, plugin config
_config.dev.yml — development overrides (localhost URL, no analytics)
_data/navigation.yml — top nav menu structure
_includes/head/custom.html — favicon, MathJax, academicons CSS

Content Conventions

Publication/talk filenames: YYYY-MM-DD-url-slug.md
YAML front matter must HTML-escape special characters (&, ", ')
MathJax is enabled for math rendering ( $...$ inline, $$...$$ display)
Collections use permalink: /:collection/:path/ pattern