Building a personal academic homepage is easier than it looks — if you know a few tricks. This post documents my experience deploying this site with the Minimal Light Jekyll theme on GitHub Pages.

Why GitHub Pages?

  • Free hosting with automatic HTTPS
  • Native Jekyll support — no build server needed
  • Version control with Git for free

Steps I Followed

1. Repository naming matters

For a user site, the repository must be named exactly username.github.io (e.g., simaqie.github.io). Any other name produces a project site at a sub-path.

2. Theme setup

Use a remote_theme in _config.yml:

remote_theme: yaoyao-liu/minimal-light

GitHub Pages resolves the remote theme automatically during build.

3. Push with a proxy

If your network has trouble reaching GitHub directly, configure Git to go through a local proxy:

git -c http.proxy=http://127.0.0.1:7890 push

For large initial pushes, also raise the buffer:

git -c http.postBuffer=524288000 push

4. Customize content

  • Sidebar info lives in _config.yml
  • Page content lives in index.md
  • Blog posts go into _posts/ with YYYY-MM-DD-title.md naming

Key Takeaways

  1. GitHub Pages auto-builds Jekyll sites — push and wait 1–2 minutes
  2. Check the build status at https://github.com/USERNAME/USERNAME.github.io/actions
  3. Keep _config.yml small; local overrides (like _layouts/) take precedence over the remote theme

Happy building!