CLAUDE.md

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

Project Overview

Jekyll-based academic personal website using the Academic Pages theme (a Minimal Mistakes fork). Hosted on GitHub Pages at https://gunavarans.github.io.

Commands

# Install dependencies (first time)
bundle install
npm install

# Serve locally with live reload
bundle exec jekyll serve -l -H localhost

# Build JavaScript assets
npm run build:js
npm run watch:js   # watch mode

Deployment is automatic via GitHub Pages on push to master.

Local dev URL: http://localhost:4000/ — baseurl in _config.yml is empty (user site served at the domain root), so paths have no prefix.

_config.yml is NOT hot-reloaded by jekyll serve -l. Changes to it require restarting the server.

Architecture

Content Collections

Content lives in collection directories as Markdown/HTML with YAML frontmatter:

Directory	URL pattern	Layout
`_pages/`	varies (set in frontmatter)	`single` or `splash`
`_publications/`	`/publication/:title/`	`single`
`_talks/`	`/talks/:title/`	`talk`
`_research/`	`/research/:title/`	`single`
`_posts/`	`/posts/YYYY/MM/:title/`	`single`
`_teaching/`	`/teaching/:title/`	`single`
`_portfolio/`	`/portfolio/:title/`	`single`

The homepage is _pages/about.md (permalink: /).

_research/ uses .html files (not .md) with raw HTML bodies — unlike other collections which use Markdown.

Layout Hierarchy

_layouts/default.html          ← base wrapper
├── _layouts/single.html       ← most pages, posts, collection items
├── _layouts/talk.html         ← _talks/
└── _layouts/splash.html       ← full-width pages

Key Configuration Files

_config.yml — site metadata, author info, collection definitions, plugin list, default layouts
_data/navigation.yml — main menu links (edit to add/remove nav items)
_data/ui-text.yml — UI string overrides
_includes/author-profile.html — sidebar bio and social links
_sass/_variables.scss — theme colors and spacing

Embedded HTML Components

Some pages embed standalone HTML files using <embed> rather than Liquid includes:

_pages/about.md embeds _pages/timeline.html for the “Updates and News” timeline
_pages/photography.html embeds _pages/photography_birds.html for the photo gallery

To add a new timeline entry, edit _pages/timeline.html directly — each entry is a <li class="timeline-item"> inside <ol class="timeline">.

Assets

Images go in images/ (author avatar: images/guna.png, hero: images/home.jpeg)
Downloadable files (PDFs) go in files/
JS is in assets/js/; _main.js is the source, main.min.js is the built output
In Liquid/HTML templates, reference images as https://gunavarans.github.io/images/filename.png

CV Page

_pages/cv.md still contains placeholder Academic Pages template content and has not been updated with real information yet.

Markdown Generator

markdown_generator/ contains Python scripts and Jupyter notebooks to bulk-generate publication and talk markdown files from TSV input files — useful when adding multiple entries at once.

Gunavaran Brihadiswaran