Creating a GitHub Pages site with Jekyll

Prerequisites

Before you can use Jekyll to create a GitHub Pages site, you must install Jekyll and Git. For more information, see Installation in the Jekyll documentation and "Set up Git."

We recommend using Bundler to install and run Jekyll. Bundler manages Ruby gem dependencies, reduces Jekyll build errors, and prevents environment-related bugs. To install Bundler:

1. Install Ruby. For more information, see "Installing Ruby" in the Ruby documentation.
2. Install Bundler. For more information, see "Bundler."

Creating a repository for your site

If your site is an independent project, you can create a new repository to store your site's source code. If your site is associated with an existing project, you can add the source code to that project's repository, in a /docs folder on the default branch or on a different branch. For example, if you're creating a site to publish documentation for a project that's already on GitHub Enterprise Server, you may want to store the source code for the site in the same repository as the project.

If you want to create a site in an existing repository, skip to the "Creating your site" section.

1. In the upper-right corner of any page, use the drop-down menu, and select New repository.
2. Use the Owner drop-down menu, and select the account you want to own the repository.
3. Type a name for your repository and an optional description. If you're creating a user or organization site, your repository must be named <user>.github.io or <organization>.github.io. If your user or organization name contains uppercase letters, you must lowercase the letters. For more information, see "About GitHub Pages."
4. Choose a repository visibility. For more information, see "About repositories."

Creating your site

Before you can create your site, you must have a repository for your site on GitHub Enterprise Server. If you're not creating your site in an existing repository, see "Creating a repository for your site."

1. Open TerminalTerminalGit Bash.

2. If you don't already have a local copy of your repository, navigate to the location where you want to store your site's source files, replacing PARENT-FOLDER with the folder you want to contain the folder for your repository.

   $ cd PARENT-FOLDER

3. If you haven't already, initialize a local Git repository, replacing REPOSITORY-NAME with the name of your repository.

   $ git init REPOSITORY-NAME
   > Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/octocat/my-site/.git/
   # Creates a new folder on your computer, initialized as a Git repository

4. Change directories to the repository.

   $ cd REPOSITORY-NAME
   # Changes the working directory

5. Decide which publishing source you want to use. For more information, see "About GitHub Pages."

6. Navigate to the publishing source for your site. For more information about publishing sources, see "About GitHub Pages." For example, if you chose to publish your site from the docs folder on the default branch, create and change directories to the docs folder.

   $ mkdir docs
   # Creates a new folder called docs
   $ cd docs

   If you chose to publish your site from the gh-pages branch, create and checkout the gh-pages branch.

   $ git checkout --orphan gh-pages
   # Creates a new branch, with no history or contents, called gh-pages, and switches to the gh-pages branch
   $ git rm -rf 
   # Removes the contents from your default branch from the working directory

7. To create a new Jekyll site, use the jekyll new command:

   $ jekyll new --skip-bundle .
   # Creates a Jekyll site in the current directory

8. Open the Gemfile that Jekyll created.

9. Add "#" to the beginning of the line that starts with gem "jekyll" to comment out this line.

10. Add the github-pages gem by editing the line starting with # gem "github-pages". Change this line to:

    gem "github-pages", "~> GITHUB-PAGES-VERSION", group: :jekyll_plugins

    Replace GITHUB-PAGES-VERSION with the latest supported version of the github-pages gem. You can find this version here: "Dependency versions."

    The correct version Jekyll will be installed as a dependency of the github-pages gem.

11. Save and close the Gemfile.

12. From the command line, run bundle install.

13. Optionally, make any necessary edits to the _config.yml file. This is required for relative paths when the repository is hosted in a subdirectory. For more information, see "Splitting a subfolder out into a new repository."

    domain: my-site.github.io       # if you want to force HTTPS, specify the domain without the http at the start, e.g. example.com
    url: https://my-site.github.io  # the base hostname and protocol for your site, e.g. http://example.com
    baseurl: /REPOSITORY-NAME/      # place folder name if the site is served in a subfolder
    

14. Optionally, test your site locally. For more information, see "Testing your GitHub Pages site locally with Jekyll."

15. Add and commit your work.

    git add .
    git commit -m 'Initial GitHub pages site with Jekyll'

16. Add your repository on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance as a remote, replacing HOSTNAME with your enterprise's hostname, USER with the account that owns the repository, and REPOSITORY with the name of the repository.

    $ git remote add origin https://HOSTNAME/USER/REPOSITORY.git
    

17. Push the repository to GitHub Enterprise Server, replacing BRANCH with the name of the branch you're working on.

    $ git push -u origin BRANCH

18. Configure your publishing source. For more information, see "Configuring a publishing source for your GitHub Pages site."

19. On GitHub Enterprise Server, navigate to your site's repository.

20. Under your repository name, click Settings.

21. In the left sidebar, click Pages.

22. To see your published site, under "GitHub Pages", click your site's URL.

    Note: It can take up to 10 minutes for changes to your site to publish after you push the changes to GitHub Enterprise Server. If you don't see your GitHub Pages site changes reflected in your browser after an hour, see "About Jekyll build errors for GitHub Pages sites."

Next steps

To add a new page or post to your site, see "Adding content to your GitHub Pages site using Jekyll."

You can add a Jekyll theme to your GitHub Pages site to customize the look and feel of your site. For more information, see "Adding a theme to your GitHub Pages site using Jekyll."