Minimal Teams

About Minimal Teams

A simplified, straightforward, and data-centric Jekyll website template

Minimal Teams is a minimalistic Jekyll template designed for scientific or academic research groups and projects, with an emphasis on being data-centric. The majority of the content is stored in YAML files under the _data/ folder. This approach provides:

  • Easy management of most content through _data/.
  • Simplified _config.yml focused on core Jekyll configuration.
  • Real-time updates during development without having to rebuild the website after changes to _config.yml.

Inspired partially by Minima, Minimal Teams is designed for flexibility and simplicity, especially for users who need quick and intuitive management of site content.

Features

We tend to separate data, code, and design from each others as much as possible:

  • Data-Centric Design: Centralized data in _data/ for easy updates.
  • Modularity: Add or remove features without affecting the template’s core.
  • Customizable Pages: Ready to adapt for publications, team members, projects, news posts, and more.

Getting Started

First, make sure you’ve installed the Jekyll requirements.

1. Use the Template

You can create a new repository based on Minimal Teams by clicking the “Use this template” button on the repository page. Alternatively:

  1. Clone the repository:

     git clone https://github.com/mhmdjouni/minimal-teams.git
 cd minimal-teams

  2. Install dependencies:

     bundle install
  3. Serve the website locally: 
     bundle exec jekyll serve

    or, for live updates:

     bundle exec jekyll serve --live
  4. Visit http://localhost:4000 to view the website.

2. Customizing the Template

  1. Site Configuration:
    • Update _config.yml with your project’s basic settings (e.g., title, description, base URL, collections, defaults).
  2. Content Management:
    • Edit YAML files in _data/ to update the site content:
      • members.yml: Team member information.
      • publications.yml: Academic publications or similar items.
      • projects.yml: List of ongoing projects.
      • news.yml: Blog-like posts, news, talks, collaborations, among other team or research-related activities.
  3. Styling:
    • Modify the CSS in assets/css for custom styles.
  4. Adding Pages:
    • For pages that you wish to add to the Navigation Bar, create a new .html or .md file in the _pages_navbar/ directory, then add the page’s info in _data/navbar.yml.
    • For pages that you do not wish to add to the Navigation bar, create a new collection (e.g., publications) in the _config.yml file and the associated folder (e.g., _publications), then create the pages inside said folder. For reference, refer to how pages_navbar is created and follow suite.
    • Avoid creating pages in the root/ directory. Try to always group them under a dedicated folder representing a theme or a collection.

License

Minimal Teams is open-source and available under the MIT License. Feel free to use, modify, and distribute it.