Carlos López-Cobá

Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Oklahoma. Galaxy kinematics, non-circular motions and 3D spectroscopy.

Deploying your website to GitHub Pages

This guide is just for you. It is not part of the website folder, so it never goes into the repository. (A GitHub Pages site on a free account must live in a public repository, so anything inside the repo can be seen by anyone; that is why this guide stays outside it.)

Your website files are in the website/ folder (download website.zip from the chat and unzip it). The final address will be https://carloscoba.github.io.

0. What you need

  • A GitHub account: CarlosCoba.
  • git installed on your computer (git --version to check).
  • Optional, only for previewing locally: Ruby 3.x and Bundler (see step 6).

1. Back up your current website

Your old site lives in the repository CarlosCoba/carloscoba.github.io.

git clone https://github.com/CarlosCoba/carloscoba.github.io.git old-website-backup

Keep that folder somewhere safe; nothing below touches it.

2. Choose one of two ways

This keeps the repository, its history and its address.

git clone https://github.com/CarlosCoba/carloscoba.github.io.git
cd carloscoba.github.io
git checkout -b main 2>/dev/null || git checkout main   # make sure you are on "main"

# remove the old site files (the .git folder is kept)
git rm -r -q .
# copy the new site in (adjust the path to where you unzipped website.zip)
cp -r /path/to/website/. .

git add -A
git commit -m "New website with Minimal Mistakes"
git push -u origin main

If your old repository uses master instead of main, either rename it on GitHub (Settings > General > Default branch) or change main to master in .github/workflows/deploy.yml (line branches: [main]).

Option B: delete the old repository and start fresh

  1. On GitHub open carloscoba.github.io > Settings > scroll to the bottom > Delete this repository (make sure you did the backup in step 1).
  2. Create a new repository: New repository, name it exactly carloscoba.github.io, set it Public, and do not add a README.
  3. Then upload the site:
cd /path/to/website
git init -b main
git add -A
git commit -m "New website with Minimal Mistakes"
git remote add origin https://github.com/CarlosCoba/carloscoba.github.io.git
git push -u origin main

(No git? You can also drag and drop the files on the repository page with Add file > Upload files. Upload the contents of website/, including the hidden .github folder; on macOS press Cmd+Shift+. in Finder to see it.)

3. Turn on GitHub Pages with GitHub Actions (one time)

  1. In the repository go to Settings > Pages.
  2. Under Build and deployment > Source, choose GitHub Actions.

That’s all. Every push to main now runs the workflow in .github/workflows/deploy.yml, which:

  1. converts _bibliography/publications.bib into the publication list,
  2. builds the site with Jekyll and the Minimal Mistakes theme,
  3. publishes it.

Watch it run in the Actions tab. When it shows a green tick (1–3 minutes), open https://carloscoba.github.io (you may need a hard refresh, Ctrl+Shift+R).

4. Updating your publications

  1. In NASA ADS, search your papers (for example orcid:0000-0003-1045-0702), select all, then Export > BibTeX.
  2. Save the file as _bibliography/publications.bib, replacing the old one.
  3. Commit and push:
git add _bibliography/publications.bib
git commit -m "Update publications"
git push

Every entry links to its ADS page automatically (using the adsurl field, or the bibcode, DOI or arXiv id). Your name is shown in bold; the spellings it looks for are in AUTHOR_SURNAMES at the top of scripts/bib2json.py.

5. Editing other content

To change Edit
Home page text, research interests index.md
CV page _pages/cv.md
Code / XS3D tutorial _pages/code.md
Sidebar (photo, bio, links), site title _config.yml
Menu _data/navigation.yml
Colours and styles assets/css/main.scss
Photos and figures assets/images/
CV PDF assets/files/CV.pdf

Pages are Markdown. After editing, commit and push; the site rebuilds itself.

6. Previewing on your computer (optional)

cd carloscoba.github.io
bundle config set --local path vendor/bundle
bundle install
python3 scripts/bib2json.py               # refresh the publication list
LANG=C.UTF-8 bundle exec jekyll serve     # open http://localhost:4000

7. Troubleshooting

  • Site still shows the old version: check Settings > Pages says GitHub Actions, and that the latest run in Actions is green.
  • Workflow failed: open the red run in Actions and read the step that failed. A malformed .bib entry makes the “Convert .bib” step fail; re-export it from ADS.
  • Workflow never runs: the branch is not main (see Option A).
  • Sidebar icons missing: they load from the internet; check your connection or ad blocker.