minima

Minima is a one-size-fits-all Jekyll theme for writers.

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Quick Overview

Minima is the default theme for Jekyll, a popular static site generator. It provides a clean, minimalist design that serves as an excellent starting point for building Jekyll-based websites and blogs. Minima is designed to be both functional and customizable, allowing users to easily modify its appearance and features.

Pros

Simple and clean design that works well out of the box
Responsive layout that adapts to various screen sizes
Easy to customize with SASS variables and includes
Supports Jekyll's built-in features like pagination and syntax highlighting

Cons

Limited built-in features compared to more complex themes
May require additional customization for more advanced layouts
Documentation could be more comprehensive for beginners
Limited color scheme options without manual customization

Code Examples

Here are a few examples of how to customize Minima:

Changing the site title and description in _config.yml:

title: My Awesome Blog
description: A place where I share my thoughts and ideas

Adding custom CSS in assets/main.scss:

---
---

@import "minima";

// Custom styles
body {
  font-family: 'Arial', sans-serif;
}

.site-header {
  background-color: #f0f0f0;
}

Creating a custom layout in _layouts/custom.html:

---
layout: default
---
<article class="custom-layout">
  <h1>{{ page.title }}</h1>
  {{ content }}
</article>

Getting Started

To use Minima with Jekyll:

Install Jekyll: gem install jekyll
Create a new Jekyll site: jekyll new my-site
Change to the site directory: cd my-site
Ensure Minima is set as the theme in _config.yml:
```
theme: minima
```
Start the Jekyll server: bundle exec jekyll serve
Visit http://localhost:4000 in your browser to see your site

You can now begin customizing your site by modifying the _config.yml file, adding posts to the _posts directory, and creating new pages as needed.

Competitor Comparisons

lanyon

3,236

A content-first, sliding sidebar theme for Jekyll.

Pros of Lanyon

More customizable layout options with sidebar and toggle functionality
Cleaner, minimalist design focused on content readability
Built-in support for categories and tags

Cons of Lanyon

Less frequently updated compared to Minima
Fewer built-in color schemes and customization options
Requires more manual configuration for advanced features

Code Comparison

Lanyon (main.css):

.sidebar {
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  left: -14rem;
  width: 14rem;
  visibility: hidden;
  overflow-y: auto;
  font-family: "PT Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
  font-size: .875rem;
  color: rgba(255,255,255,.6);
  background-color: #202020;
  -webkit-transition: all .3s ease-in-out;
          transition: all .3s ease-in-out;
}

Minima (_base.scss):

body {
  font: $base-font-weight #{$base-font-size}/#{$base-line-height} $base-font-family;
  color: $text-color;
  background-color: $background-color;
  -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;
  -webkit-font-feature-settings: "kern" 1;
     -moz-font-feature-settings: "kern" 1;
       -o-font-feature-settings: "kern" 1;
          font-feature-settings: "kern" 1;
  font-kerning: normal;
  display: flex;
  min-height: 100vh;
  flex-direction: column;
}

minimal-mistakes

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:triangular_ruler: Jekyll theme for building a personal site, blog, project documentation, or portfolio.

Pros of Minimal Mistakes

More feature-rich with advanced layout options and customization
Extensive documentation and active community support
Built-in support for multiple authors and social sharing

Cons of Minimal Mistakes

Steeper learning curve due to more complex structure
Potentially slower load times due to additional features
May be overkill for simple blogs or websites

Code Comparison

Minima (default layout):

<body>
  {%- include header.html -%}
  <main class="page-content" aria-label="Content">
    <div class="wrapper">
      {{ content }}
    </div>
  </main>
  {%- include footer.html -%}
</body>

Minimal Mistakes (default layout):

<body class="layout--{{ page.layout | default: layout.layout }}{% if page.classes or layout.classes %}{{ page.classes | default: layout.classes | join: ' ' | prepend: ' ' }}{% endif %}">
  {% include_cached skip-links.html %}
  {% include_cached masthead.html %}
  <div class="initial-content">
    {{ content }}
  </div>
  {% include_cached footer.html %}
  {% include_cached scripts.html %}
</body>

Minimal Mistakes offers more granular control and additional features in its layout structure, while Minima provides a simpler, more straightforward approach. The choice between the two depends on the project's complexity and customization needs.

jekyll-now

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Build a Jekyll blog in minutes, without touching the command line.

Pros of jekyll-now

Simpler setup process, designed for quick start and immediate deployment
Includes pre-configured social media integration
More beginner-friendly with detailed instructions in the README

Cons of jekyll-now

Less flexible and customizable compared to minima
Fewer built-in features and layout options
Less actively maintained, with fewer recent updates

Code Comparison

jekyll-now:

<footer class="wrapper-footer">
  <div class="container">
    <footer class="footer">
      {% include svg-icons.html %}
    </footer>
  </div>
</footer>

minima:

<footer class="site-footer h-card">
  <data class="u-url" href="{{ "/" | relative_url }}"></data>
  <div class="wrapper">
    <div class="footer-col-wrapper">
      <!-- Footer content -->
    </div>
  </div>
</footer>

The code comparison shows that jekyll-now uses a simpler footer structure with social media icons, while minima provides a more structured and semantically rich footer layout. This reflects the overall difference in complexity and customization options between the two themes.

jekyll-now is ideal for users who want a quick and easy setup with basic blogging features, while minima offers more flexibility and is better suited for users who need more advanced customization options and are comfortable with Jekyll's theme system.

beautiful-jekyll

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✨ Build a beautiful and simple website in literally minutes. Demo at https://beautifuljekyll.com

Pros of Beautiful Jekyll

More feature-rich with built-in support for Google Analytics, social media sharing, and comments
Highly customizable with numerous configuration options
Includes a responsive and modern design out-of-the-box

Cons of Beautiful Jekyll

Steeper learning curve due to more complex configuration
Larger file size and potentially slower load times
May require more maintenance to keep up with updates and dependencies

Code Comparison

Beautiful Jekyll configuration example:

title: My Website
author: John Doe
navbar-links:
  About Me: "aboutme"
  Resources:
    - Beautiful Jekyll: "https://beautifuljekyll.com"
    - Learn markdown: "https://www.markdowntutorial.com/"

Minima configuration example:

title: My Website
author:
  name: John Doe
  email: john@example.com
description: A simple Jekyll theme

Beautiful Jekyll offers more extensive configuration options, allowing for greater customization of the site's appearance and functionality. Minima, on the other hand, provides a simpler configuration with fewer options, making it easier to set up but less flexible for advanced users.

cayman

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Cayman is a Jekyll theme for GitHub Pages

Pros of Cayman

Cleaner, more modern design with a prominent header
Better out-of-the-box mobile responsiveness
Simpler customization with fewer files to modify

Cons of Cayman

Less flexible layout options compared to Minima
Fewer built-in features (e.g., no social media icons)
Limited blog post functionality without additional configuration

Code Comparison

Minima (default layout):

<body>
  {%- include header.html -%}
  <main class="page-content" aria-label="Content">
    <div class="wrapper">
      {{ content }}
    </div>
  </main>
  {%- include footer.html -%}
</body>

Cayman (default layout):

<body>
  <a id="skip-to-content" href="#content">Skip to the content.</a>
  <header class="page-header" role="banner">
    <h1 class="project-name">{{ page.title | default: site.title | default: site.github.repository_name }}</h1>
    <h2 class="project-tagline">{{ page.description | default: site.description | default: site.github.project_tagline }}</h2>
  </header>
  <main id="content" class="main-content" role="main">
    {{ content }}
  </main>
</body>

Both themes offer clean, responsive designs for GitHub Pages, but Cayman focuses on simplicity and a modern look, while Minima provides more built-in features and customization options.

pixyll

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A simple, beautiful Jekyll theme that's mobile first

Pros of Pixyll

More modern and visually appealing design
Built-in support for social sharing and analytics
Includes advanced features like pagination and category pages

Cons of Pixyll

Less frequently updated than Minima
Smaller community and fewer resources available
May require more customization for specific use cases

Code Comparison

Pixyll (_config.yml):

# Site settings
title: Your awesome title
email: your-email@domain.com
author: John Otander
description: "A simple, beautiful theme for Jekyll that emphasizes content rather than aesthetic fluff."
baseurl: ""
url: "http://pixyll.com"

Minima (_config.yml):

title: Your awesome title
email: your-email@example.com
description: >-
  Write an awesome description for your new site here.
baseurl: "" # the subpath of your site, e.g. /blog
url: "" # the base hostname & protocol for your site, e.g. http://example.com
twitter_username: jekyllrb
github_username:  jekyll

Both themes use similar configuration files, but Pixyll includes additional options for customization and features. Minima's configuration is more streamlined and focuses on essential settings, making it easier for beginners to get started.

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README

Disclaimer: The information here may vary depending on the version you're using.
Please refer to the README.md bundled within the theme-gem for information specific to your version or by pointing your browser to the Git tag corresponding to your version. e.g. https://github.com/jekyll/minima/blob/v2.5.0/README.md.
Running bundle show minima will provide you with the local path to your current theme version.

It's Jekyll's default (and first) theme. It's what you get when you run jekyll new.

Theme preview

Installation

Add this line to your Jekyll site's Gemfile:

gem "minima"

And then execute:

$ bundle

Contents At-A-Glance

Minima has been scaffolded by the jekyll new-theme command and therefore has all the necessary files and directories to have a new Jekyll site up and running with zero-configuration.

Layouts

Refers to files within the _layouts directory, that define the markup for your theme.

base.html — The base layout that lays the foundation for subsequent layouts. The derived layouts inject their contents into this file at the line that says {{ content }} and are linked to this file via FrontMatter declaration layout: base.
home.html — The layout for your landing-page / home-page / index-page. [More Info.]
page.html — The layout for your documents that contain FrontMatter, but are not posts.
post.html — The layout for your posts.

Base Layout

From Minima v3 onwards, the base layout is named base.html instead of default.html to avoid confusing new users into assuming that name holds special status.

Users migrating from older versions with customized _layouts/default.html are advised to rename their copy to _layouts/base.html. Migrating users with additional customized layouts may either update front matter references to former default.html layout or create a new default.html layout referencing the current base.html, whichever route being the easiest:

---
# new `_layouts/default.html` for backwards-compatibility when multiple
# layouts have been customized.

layout: base
---

{{ content }}

Home Layout

home.html is a flexible HTML layout for the site's landing-page / home-page / index-page.

Main Heading and Content-injection

From Minima v2.2 onwards, the home layout will inject all content from your index.md / index.html before the Posts heading. This will allow you to include non-posts related content to be published on the landing page under a dedicated heading. We recommended that you title this section with a Heading2 (##).

Usually the site.title itself would suffice as the implicit 'main-title' for a landing-page. But, if your landing-page would like a heading to be explicitly displayed, then simply define a title variable in the document's front matter and it will be rendered with an <h1> tag.

Post Listing

This section is optional from Minima v2.2 onwards.
It will be automatically included only when your site contains one or more valid posts or drafts (if the site is configured to show_drafts).

The title for this section is Posts by default and rendered with an <h2> tag. You can customize this heading by defining a list_title variable in the document's front matter.

Includes

Refers to snippets of code within the _includes directory that can be inserted in multiple layouts (and another include-file as well) within the same theme-gem.

disqus_comments.html — Code to markup disqus comment box.
footer.html — Defines the site's footer section.
google-analytics.html — Inserts Google Analytics module (active only in production environment).
head.html — Code-block that defines the <head></head> in default layout.
custom-head.html — Placeholder to allow users to add more metadata to <head />.
header.html — Defines the site's main header section. By default, pages with a defined title attribute will have links displayed here.
social.html — Renders social-media icons based on the minima:social_links data in the config file.
social-item.html — Template to render individual list-item containing graphic link to configured social-profile.
social-links/*.svg — SVG markup components of supported social-icons.

Sass

Refers to .scss files within the _sass directory that define the theme's styles.

minima/skins/classic.scss — The "classic" skin of the theme. Used by default.
minima/initialize.scss — A component that defines the theme's skin-agnostic variable defaults and sass partials. It imports the following components (in the following order):
- minima/custom-variables.scss — A hook that allows overriding variable defaults and mixins. (Note: Cannot override styles)
- minima/_base.scss — Sass partial for resets and defines base styles for various HTML elements.
- minima/_layout.scss — Sass partial that defines the visual style for various layouts.
- minima/custom-styles.scss — A hook that allows overriding styles defined above. (Note: Cannot override variables)

Refer the skins section for more details.

Assets

Refers to various asset files within the assets directory.

assets/css/style.scss — Imports sass files from within the _sass directory and gets processed into the theme's stylesheet: assets/css/styles.css.
assets/minima-social-icons.html — Imports enabled social-media icon graphic and gets processed into a composite SVG file. Refer section on social networks for its usage.

Plugins

Minima comes with jekyll-seo-tag plugin preinstalled to make sure your website gets the most useful meta tags. See usage to know how to set it up.

Usage

Have the following line in your config file:

theme: minima

Customizing templates

To override the default structure and style of minima, simply create the concerned directory at the root of your site, copy the file you wish to customize to that directory, and then edit the file. e.g., to override the _includes/head.html file to specify a custom style path, create an _includes directory, copy _includes/head.html from minima gem folder to <yoursite>/_includes and start editing that file.

The site's default CSS has now moved to a new place within the gem itself, assets/css/style.scss.

In Minima 3.0, if you only need to customize the colors of the theme, refer to the subsequent section on skins. To have your CSS overrides in sync with upstream changes released in future versions, you can collect all your overrides for the Sass variables and mixins inside a sass file placed at _sass/minima/custom-variables.scss and all other overrides inside a sass file placed at path _sass/minima/custom-styles.scss.

You need not maintain entire partial(s) at the site's source just to override a few styles. However, your stylesheet's primary source (assets/css/style.scss) should contain the following:

Front matter dashes at the very beginning (can be empty).
Directive to import a skin.
Directive to import the base styles (automatically loads overrides when available).

Therefore, your assets/css/style.scss should contain the following at minimum:

---
---

@import
  "minima/skins/{{ site.minima.skin | default: 'classic' }}",
  "minima/initialize";

Skins

Minima 3.0 supports defining and switching between multiple color-palettes (or skins).

.
âââ minima.scss
âââ minima
    âââ _syntax-highlighting.scss

A skin is a Sass file placed in the directory _sass/minima/skins and it defines the variable defaults related to the "color" aspect of the theme. It also embeds the Sass rules related to syntax-highlighting since that is primarily related to color and has to be adjusted in harmony with the current skin.

The default color palette for Minima is defined within _sass/minima/skins/classic.scss. To switch to another available skin, simply declare it in the site's config file. For example, to activate _sass/minima/skins/dark.scss as the skin, the setting would be:

minima:
  skin: dark

As part of the migration to support skins, some existing Sass variables have been retired and some have been redefined as summarized in the following table:

Minima 2.0	Minima 3.0
`$brand-color`	`$link-base-color`
`$grey-*`	`$brand-*`
`$orange-color`	has been removed

Available skins

Skin setting	Description
classic	Default, light color scheme.
dark	Dark variant of the classic skin.
auto	Adaptive skin based on the default classic and dark skins.
solarized	Adaptive skin for solarized color scheme skins.
solarized-light	Light variant of solarized color scheme.
solarized-dark	Dark variant of solarized color scheme.

:bulb: Adaptive skins switch between the "light" and "dark" variants based on the user's operating system setting or browser setting (via CSS Media Query prefers-color-scheme).

Customize navigation links

This allows you to set which pages you want to appear in the navigation area and configure order of the links.

For instance, to only link to the about and the portfolio page, add the following to your _config.yml:

header_pages:
  - about.md
  - portfolio.md

Change default date format

You can change the default date format by specifying site.minima.date_format in _config.yml.

# Minima date format
# refer to http://shopify.github.io/liquid/filters/date/ if you want to customize this
minima:
  date_format: "%b %-d, %Y"

Extending the `<head />`

You can add custom metadata to the <head /> of your layouts by creating a file _includes/custom-head.html in your source directory. For example, to add favicons:

Head over to https://realfavicongenerator.net/ to add your own favicons.
Customize default _includes/custom-head.html in your source directory and insert the given code snippet.

Enabling comments (via Disqus)

Optionally, if you have a Disqus account, you can tell Jekyll to use it to show a comments section below each post.

:warning: url, e.g. https://example.com, must be set in you config file for Disqus to work.

To enable it, after setting the url field, you also need to add the following lines to your Jekyll site:

  disqus:
    shortname: my_disqus_shortname

You can find out more about Disqus' shortnames here.

Comments are enabled by default and will only appear in production, i.e., JEKYLL_ENV=production

If you don't want to display comments for a particular post you can disable them by adding comments: false to that post's YAML Front Matter.

Author Metadata

From Minima-3.0 onwards, site.author is expected to be a mapping of attributes instead of a simple scalar value:

author:
  name: John Smith
  email: "john.smith@foobar.com"

To migrate existing metadata, update your config file and any reference to the object in your layouts and includes as summarized below:

Minima 2.x	Minima 3.0
`site.author`	`site.author.name`
`site.email`	`site.author.email`

Social networks

You can add links to the accounts you have on other sites, with respective icon as an SVG graphic, via the config file. From Minima-3.0 onwards, the social media data is sourced from config key minima.social_links. It is a list of key-value pairs, each entry corresponding to a link rendered in the footer. For example, to render links to Jekyll GitHub repository and Twitter account, one should have:

minima:
  social_links:
    - { platform: github,  user_url: "https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll" }
    - { platform: twitter, user_url: "https://twitter.com/jekyllrb" }

Apart from the necessary keys illustrated above, title may also be defined to render a custom link-title. By default, the title is the same as platform. The platform key corresponds to the SVG id of the sprite in the composite file at URL /assets/minima-social-icons.svg.

The theme ships with an icon for rss and icons of select social-media platforms:

bluesky
codeberg
devto
dribbble
facebook
flickr
github
gitlab
google_scholar
instagram
keybase
linkedin
mastodon
microdotblog
pinterest
stackoverflow
telegram
twitter
whatsapp
x
youtube

To render a link to a platform not listed above, one should first create a file at path _includes/social-icons/<PLATFORM>.svg comprised of graphic markup without the top-level <svg></svg>. The icon is expected to be centered within a viewbox of "0 0 16 16". Then, make an entry under key minima.social_links.

For example, to render a link to an account of user john.doe at platform deviantart.com, the steps to follow would be:

Get DeviantArt logo in SVG format.
Using a text-editor, open the downloaded file to inspect if the viewBox attribute is defined on the <svg> element and is set as "0 0 16 16" (or similar "square" dimension).
If the viewBox attribute is non-square or undefined, the graphic may optionally need to be edited in a vector graphic editor such as Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator for properly aligned render on page.
Edit the SVG file in text-editor to delete everything except what is contained between <svg></svg> and save it into the Jekyll project at path _includes/social-icons/deviantart.svg.

Finally, edit the Jekyll config file to enable loading of new icon graphic with:

minima:
  social_links:
    - platform: deviantart  # same as SVG filename.
      user_url: "https://www.deviantart.com/john.doe"  # URL of profile page.
      title:  My profile at DeviantArt.com  # Optional. Text displayed on hovering over link.

Notes:

The list of social-links is declarative. List-items are rendered in the order declared in the downstream configuration file and not merged with entries from upstream config file(s) such as theme-config-file or prior local config files.
The user_url is rendered as given without handling any special characters within.

Enabling Google Analytics

To enable Google Analytics, add the following lines to your Jekyll site:

  google_analytics: UA-NNNNNNNN-N

Google Analytics will only appear in production, i.e., JEKYLL_ENV=production

Enabling Excerpts on the Home Page

To display post-excerpts on the Home Page, simply add the following to your _config.yml:

show_excerpts: true

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/jekyll/minima. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

Development

To set up your environment to develop this theme, run script/bootstrap.

To test your theme, run script/server (or bundle exec jekyll serve) and open your browser at http://localhost:4000. This starts a Jekyll server using your theme and the contents. As you make modifications, your site will regenerate and you should see the changes in the browser after a refresh.

License

The theme is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

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Try Visual Copilot

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Quick Overview

Pros

Cons

Code Examples

Getting Started

Competitor Comparisons

Pros of Lanyon

Cons of Lanyon

Code Comparison

Pros of Minimal Mistakes

Cons of Minimal Mistakes

Code Comparison

Pros of jekyll-now

Cons of jekyll-now

Code Comparison

Pros of Beautiful Jekyll

Cons of Beautiful Jekyll

Code Comparison

Pros of Cayman

Cons of Cayman

Code Comparison

Pros of Pixyll

Cons of Pixyll

Code Comparison

Convert designs to code with AI

README

Installation

Contents At-A-Glance

Layouts

Base Layout

Home Layout

Main Heading and Content-injection

Post Listing

Includes

Sass

Assets

Plugins

Usage

Customizing templates

Skins

Available skins

Customize navigation links

Change default date format

Extending the <head />

Enabling comments (via Disqus)

Author Metadata

Social networks

Enabling Google Analytics

Enabling Excerpts on the Home Page

Contributing

Development

License

Top Related Projects

Convert designs to code with AI

Extending the `<head />`