Guide & Notes

Posted Nov 10, 2025

Logo-Cyphera v.1.0

By Firmansyah Dzakwan Arifien

21 min read

Guide & Notes

This tutorial will guide you how to write a post in the Chirpy template, and it’s worth reading even if you’ve used Jekyll before, as many features require specific variables to be set.

Naming and Path

Create a new file named YYYY-MM-DD-TITLE.EXTENSION and put it in the _posts of the root directory. Please note that the EXTENSION must be one of md and markdown. If you want to save time of creating files, please consider using the plugin Jekyll-Compose to accomplish this.

Front Matter

Basically, you need to fill the Front Matter as below at the top of the post:

  
---
title: TITLE
date: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS +/-TTTT
categories: [TOP_CATEGORY, SUB_CATEGORY]
tags: [TAG]     # TAG names should always be lowercase
---

The posts’ layout has been set to post by default, so there is no need to add the variable layout in the Front Matter block.

Timezone of Date

To accurately record the release date of a post, you should not only set up the timezone of _config.yml but also provide the post’s timezone in variable date of its Front Matter block. Format: +/-TTTT, e.g. +0800.

Categories and Tags

The categories of each post are designed to contain up to two elements, and the number of elements in tags can be zero to infinity. For instance:

  
---
categories: [Animal, Insect]
tags: [bee]
---

Author Information

The author information of the post usually does not need to be filled in the Front Matter , they will be obtained from variables social.name and the first entry of social.links of the configuration file by default. But you can also override it as follows:

Adding author information in _data/authors.yml (If your website doesn’t have this file, don’t hesitate to create one).

  
<author_id>:
  name: <full name>
  twitter: <twitter_of_author>
  url: <homepage_of_author>

And then use author to specify a single entry or authors to specify multiple entries:

  
---
author: <author_id>                     # for single entry
# or
authors: [<author1_id>, <author2_id>]   # for multiple entries
---

Having said that, the key author can also identify multiple entries.

The benefit of reading the author information from the file _data/authors.yml is that the page will have the meta tag twitter:creator, which enriches the Twitter Cards and is good for SEO.

Post Description

By default, the first words of the post are used to display on the home page for a list of posts, in the Further Reading section, and in the XML of the RSS feed. If you don’t want to display the auto-generated description for the post, you can customize it using the description field in the Front Matter as follows:

  
---
description: Short summary of the post.
---

Additionally, the description text will also be displayed under the post title on the post’s page.

By default, the Table of Contents (TOC) is displayed on the right panel of the post. If you want to turn it off globally, go to _config.yml and set the value of variable toc to false. If you want to turn off TOC for a specific post, add the following to the post’s Front Matter:

  
---
toc: false
---

Comments

The global setting for comments is defined by the comments.provider option in the _config.yml file. Once a comment system is selected for this variable, comments will be enabled for all posts.

If you want to close the comment for a specific post, add the following to the Front Matter of the post:

  
---
comments: false
---

Media

We refer to images, audio and video as media resources in Chirpy.

URL Prefix

From time to time we have to define duplicate URL prefixes for multiple resources in a post, which is a boring task that you can avoid by setting two parameters.

If you are using a CDN to host media files, you can specify the cdn in _config.yml. The URLs of media resources for site avatar and posts are then prefixed with the CDN domain name.
1 cdn: https://cdn.com
To specify the resource path prefix for the current post/page range, set media_subpath in the front matter of the post:
1 2 3 --- media_subpath: /path/to/media/ ---

The option site.cdn and page.media_subpath can be used individually or in combination to flexibly compose the final resource URL: [site.cdn/][page.media_subpath/]file.ext

Images

Caption

Add italics to the next line of an image, then it will become the caption and appear at the bottom of the image:

  
![img-description](/path/to/image)
_Image Caption_

Size

To prevent the page content layout from shifting when the image is loaded, we should set the width and height for each image.

  
![Desktop View](/assets/img/sample/mockup.png){: width="700" height="400" }

For an SVG, you have to at least specify its width, otherwise it won’t be rendered.

Starting from Chirpy v5.0.0, height and width support abbreviations (height → h, width → w). The following example has the same effect as the above:

  
![Desktop View](/assets/img/sample/mockup.png){: w="700" h="400" }

Position

By default, the image is centered, but you can specify the position by using one of the classes normal, left, and right.

Once the position is specified, the image caption should not be added.

Normal position

Image will be left aligned in below sample:

  
![Desktop View](/assets/img/sample/mockup.png){: .normal }

Float to the left

  
![Desktop View](/assets/img/sample/mockup.png){: .left }

Float to the right

  
![Desktop View](/assets/img/sample/mockup.png){: .right }

Dark/Light mode

You can make images follow theme preferences in dark/light mode. This requires you to prepare two images, one for dark mode and one for light mode, and then assign them a specific class (dark or light):

  
![Light mode only](/path/to/light-mode.png){: .light }
![Dark mode only](/path/to/dark-mode.png){: .dark }

Shadow

The screenshots of the program window can be considered to show the shadow effect:

  
![Desktop View](/assets/img/sample/mockup.png){: .shadow }

Preview Image

If you want to add an image at the top of the post, please provide an image with a resolution of 1200 x 630. Please note that if the image aspect ratio does not meet 1.91 : 1, the image will be scaled and cropped.

Knowing these prerequisites, you can start setting the image’s attribute:

  
---
image:
  path: /path/to/image
  alt: image alternative text
---

Note that the media_subpath can also be passed to the preview image, that is, when it has been set, the attribute path only needs the image file name.

For simple use, you can also just use image to define the path.

  
---
image: /path/to/image
---

LQIP

For preview images:

  
---
image:
  lqip: /path/to/lqip-file # or base64 URI
---

You can observe LQIP in the preview image of post "Text and Typography".

For normal images:

  
![Image description](/path/to/image){: lqip="/path/to/lqip-file" }

You can embed video/audio from social media platforms with the following syntax:

  
{% include embed/{Platform}.html id='{ID}' %}

Where Platform is the lowercase of the platform name, and ID is the video ID.

The following table shows how to get the two parameters we need in a given video/audio URL, and you can also know the currently supported video platforms.

Video URL	Platform	ID
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-B46URT4mg	`youtube`	`H-B46URT4mg`
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1634779211	`twitch`	`1634779211`
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Q44y1B7Wf	`bilibili`	`BV1Q44y1B7Wf`
https://www.open.spotify.com/track/3OuMIIFP5TxM8tLXMWYPGV	`spotify`	`3OuMIIFP5TxM8tLXMWYPGV`

Spotify supports some additional parameters:

compact - to display compact player instead (ex. {% include embed/spotify.html id='3OuMIIFP5TxM8tLXMWYPGV' compact=1 %});
dark - to force dark theme (ex. {% include embed/spotify.html id='3OuMIIFP5TxM8tLXMWYPGV' dark=1 %}).

Video Files

If you want to embed a video file directly, use the following syntax:

  
{% include embed/video.html src='{URL}' %}

Where URL is a URL to a video file e.g. /path/to/sample/video.mp4.

You can also specify additional attributes for the embedded video file. Here is a full list of attributes allowed.

poster='/path/to/poster.png' — poster image for a video that is shown while video is downloading
title='Text' — title for a video that appears below the video and looks same as for images
autoplay=true — video automatically begins to play back as soon as it can
loop=true — automatically seek back to the start upon reaching the end of the video
muted=true — audio will be initially silenced
types — specify the extensions of additional video formats separated by |. Ensure these files exist in the same directory as your primary video file.

Consider an example using all of the above:

  
{%
  include embed/video.html
  src='/path/to/video.mp4'
  types='ogg|mov'
  poster='poster.png'
  title='Demo video'
  autoplay=true
  loop=true
  muted=true
%}

Audio Files

If you want to embed an audio file directly, use the following syntax:

  
{% include embed/audio.html src='{URL}' %}

Where URL is a URL to an audio file e.g. /path/to/audio.mp3.

You can also specify additional attributes for the embedded audio file. Here is a full list of attributes allowed.

title='Text' — title for an audio that appears below the audio and looks same as for images
types — specify the extensions of additional audio formats separated by |. Ensure these files exist in the same directory as your primary audio file.

Consider an example using all of the above:

  
{%
  include embed/audio.html
  src='/path/to/audio.mp3'
  types='ogg|wav|aac'
  title='Demo audio'
%}

Pinned Posts

You can pin one or more posts to the top of the home page, and the fixed posts are sorted in reverse order according to their release date. Enable by:

  
---
pin: true
---

Prompts

There are several types of prompts: tip, info, warning, and danger. They can be generated by adding the class prompt-{type} to the blockquote. For example, define a prompt of type info as follows:

> Example line for prompt.
{: .prompt-info }

Syntax

Inline Code

`inline code part`

Filepath Highlight

`/path/to/a/file.extend`{: .filepath}

Code Block

Markdown symbols ``` can easily create a code block as follows:

  
```
This is a plaintext code snippet.
```

Specifying Language

Using ```{language} you will get a code block with syntax highlight:

  
```yaml
key: value
```

The Jekyll tag {% highlight %} is not compatible with this theme.

Line Number

By default, all languages except plaintext, console, and terminal will display line numbers. When you want to hide the line number of a code block, add the class nolineno to it:

  
```shell
echo 'No more line numbers!'
```
{: .nolineno }

Specifying the Filename

You may have noticed that the code language will be displayed at the top of the code block. If you want to replace it with the file name, you can add the attribute file to achieve this:

  
```shell
# content
```
{: file="path/to/file" }

Liquid Codes

If you want to display the Liquid snippet, surround the liquid code with {% raw %} and {% endraw %}:

  
{% raw %}
```liquid
{% if product.title contains 'Pack' %}
  This product's title contains the word Pack.
{% endif %}
```
{% endraw %}

Or adding render_with_liquid: false (Requires Jekyll 4.0 or higher) to the post’s YAML block.

Mathematics

We use MathJax to generate mathematics. For website performance reasons, the mathematical feature won’t be loaded by default. But it can be enabled by:

  
---
math: true
---

After enabling the mathematical feature, you can add math equations with the following syntax:

Block math should be added with $$ math $$ with mandatory blank lines before and after $$
- Inserting equation numbering should be added with $$\begin{equation} math \end{equation}$$
- Referencing equation numbering should be done with \label{eq:label_name} in the equation block and \eqref{eq:label_name} inline with text (see example below)
Inline math (in lines) should be added with $$ math $$ without any blank line before or after $$
Inline math (in lists) should be added with \$$ math $$

  
<!-- Block math, keep all blank lines -->

$$
LaTeX_math_expression
$$

<!-- Equation numbering, keep all blank lines  -->

$$
\begin{equation}
  LaTeX_math_expression
  \label{eq:label_name}
\end{equation}
$$

Can be referenced as \eqref{eq:label_name}.

<!-- Inline math in lines, NO blank lines -->

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, $$ LaTeX_math_expression $$ consectetur adipiscing elit."

<!-- Inline math in lists, escape the first `$` -->

1. \$$ LaTeX_math_expression $$
2. \$$ LaTeX_math_expression $$
3. \$$ LaTeX_math_expression $$

Starting with v7.0.0, configuration options for MathJax have been moved to file assets/js/data/mathjax.js, and you can change the options as needed, such as adding extensions.
If you are building the site via chirpy-starter, copy that file from the gem installation directory (check with command bundle info --path jekyll-theme-chirpy) to the same directory in your repository.

Mermaid

Mermaid is a great diagram generation tool. To enable it on your post, add the following to the YAML block:

  
---
mermaid: true
---

Then you can use it like other markdown languages: surround the graph code with ```mermaid and ```.

Learn More

For more knowledge about Jekyll posts, visit the Jekyll Docs: Posts.

Getting Started

description: >-

Get started with Chirpy basics in this comprehensive overview. You will learn how to install, configure, and use your first Chirpy-based website, as well as deploy it to a web server.

Creating a Site Repository

When creating your site repository, you have two options depending on your needs:

Option 1. Using the Starter (Recommended)

This approach simplifies upgrades, isolates unnecessary files, and is perfect for users who want to focus on writing with minimal configuration.

Sign in to GitHub and navigate to the starter.
Click the Use this template button and then select Create a new repository.
Name the new repository <username>.github.io, replacing username with your lowercase GitHub username.

Option 2. Forking the Theme

This approach is convenient for modifying features or UI design, but presents challenges during upgrades. So don’t try this unless you are familiar with Jekyll and plan to heavily modify this theme.

Sign in to GitHub.
Fork the theme repository.
Name the new repository <username>.github.io, replacing username with your lowercase GitHub username.

Setting up the Environment

Once your repository is created, it’s time to set up your development environment. There are two primary methods:

Using Dev Containers (Recommended for Windows)

Dev Containers offer an isolated environment using Docker, which prevents conflicts with your system and ensures all dependencies are managed within the container.

Steps:

Install Docker:
- On Windows/macOS, install Docker Desktop.
- On Linux, install Docker Engine.
Install VS Code and the Dev Containers extension.
Clone your repository:
- For Docker Desktop: Start VS Code and clone your repo in a container volume.
- For Docker Engine: Clone your repo locally, then open it in a container via VS Code.
Wait for the Dev Containers setup to complete.

Setting up Natively (Recommended for Unix-like OS)

For Unix-like systems, you can set up the environment natively for optimal performance, though you can also use Dev Containers as an alternative.

Steps:

Follow the Jekyll installation guide to install Jekyll and ensure Git is installed.
Clone your repository to your local machine.
If you forked the theme, install Node.js and run bash tools/init.sh in the root directory to initialize the repository.
Run command bundle in the root of your repository to install the dependencies.

Usage

Start the Jekyll Server

To run the site locally, use the following command:

  
$ bundle exec jekyll serve

If you are using Dev Containers, you must run that command in the VS Code Terminal.

After a few seconds, the local server will be available at http://127.0.0.1:4000.

Configuration

Update the variables in _config.yml as needed. Some typical options include:

url
avatar
timezone
lang

Social contact options are displayed at the bottom of the sidebar. You can enable or disable specific contacts in the _data/contact.yml file.

Customizing the Stylesheet

To customize the stylesheet, copy the theme’s assets/css/jekyll-theme-chirpy.scss file to the same path in your Jekyll site, and add your custom styles at the end of the file.

Customizing Static Assets

Static assets configuration was introduced in version 5.1.0. The CDN of the static assets is defined in _data/origin/cors.yml. You can replace some of them based on the network conditions in the region where your website is published.

If you prefer to self-host the static assets, refer to the chirpy-static-assets repository.

Deployment

Before deploying, check the _config.yml file and ensure the url is configured correctly. If you prefer a project site and don’t use a custom domain, or if you want to visit your website with a base URL on a web server other than GitHub Pages, remember to set the baseurl to your project name, starting with a slash, e.g., /project-name.

Now you can choose ONE of the following methods to deploy your Jekyll site.

Deploy Using Github Actions

Prepare the following:

If you’re on the GitHub Free plan, keep your site repository public.
If you have committed Gemfile.lock to the repository, and your local machine is not running Linux, update the platform list of the lock file:
1 $ bundle lock --add-platform x86_64-linux

Next, configure the Pages service:

Go to your repository on GitHub. Select the Settings tab, then click Pages in the left navigation bar. In the Source section (under Build and deployment), select GitHub Actions from the dropdown menu.
Push any commits to GitHub to trigger the Actions workflow. In the Actions tab of your repository, you should see the workflow Build and Deploy running. Once the build is complete and successful, the site will be deployed automatically.

You can now visit the URL provided by GitHub to access your site.

Manual Build and Deployment

For self-hosted servers, you will need to build the site on your local machine and then upload the site files to the server.

Navigate to the root of the source project, and build your site with the following command:

  
$ JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll b

Unless you specified the output path, the generated site files will be placed in the _site folder of the project’s root directory. Upload these files to your target server.

Text and Typography

description: Examples of text, typography, math equations, diagrams, flowcharts, pictures, videos, and more.

Headings

H1 — heading

H2 — heading

H3 — heading

H4 — heading

Paragraph

Quisque egestas convallis ipsum, ut sollicitudin risus tincidunt a. Maecenas interdum malesuada egestas. Duis consectetur porta risus, sit amet vulputate urna facilisis ac. Phasellus semper dui non purus ultrices sodales. Aliquam ante lorem, ornare a feugiat ac, finibus nec mauris. Vivamus ut tristique nisi. Sed vel leo vulputate, efficitur risus non, posuere mi. Nullam tincidunt bibendum rutrum. Proin commodo ornare sapien. Vivamus interdum diam sed sapien blandit, sit amet aliquam risus mattis. Nullam arcu turpis, mollis quis laoreet at, placerat id nibh. Suspendisse venenatis eros eros.

Lists

Ordered list

Firstly
Secondly
Thirdly

Unordered list

Chapter
- Section
  - Paragraph

ToDo list

Job
- Step 1
- Step 2
- Step 3

Description list

Sun: the star around which the earth orbits
Moon: the natural satellite of the earth, visible by reflected light from the sun

Block Quote

This line shows the block quote.

Prompts

An example showing the tip type prompt.

An example showing the info type prompt.

An example showing the warning type prompt.

An example showing the danger type prompt.

Tables

Company	Contact	Country
Alfreds Futterkiste	Maria Anders	Germany
Island Trading	Helen Bennett	UK
Magazzini Alimentari Riuniti	Giovanni Rovelli	Italy

Links

http://127.0.0.1:4000

Footnote

Click the hook will locate the footnote¹, and here is another footnote².

Inline code

This is an example of Inline Code.

Filepath

Here is the /path/to/the/file.extend.

Code blocks

Common

This is a common code snippet, without syntax highlight and line number.

Specific Language

  
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "The command was not successful.";
  #do the needful / exit
fi;

Specific filename

  
@import
  "colors/light-typography",
  "colors/dark-typography";

Mathematics

The mathematics powered by MathJax:

\[\begin{equation} \sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/n^2 = \frac{\pi^2}{6} \label{eq:series} \end{equation}\]

We can reference the equation as \eqref{eq:series}.

When $a \ne 0$, there are two solutions to $ax^2 + bx + c = 0$ and they are

\[x = {-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac} \over 2a}\]

Mermaid SVG

 gantt
  title  Adding GANTT diagram functionality to mermaid
  apple :a, 2017-07-20, 1w
  banana :crit, b, 2017-07-23, 1d
  cherry :active, c, after b a, 1d

Images

Default (with caption)

Full screen width and center alignment

Left aligned

Float to left

Praesent maximus aliquam sapien. Sed vel neque in dolor pulvinar auctor. Maecenas pharetra, sem sit amet interdum posuere, tellus lacus eleifend magna, ac lobortis felis ipsum id sapien. Proin ornare rutrum metus, ac convallis diam volutpat sit amet. Phasellus volutpat, elit sit amet tincidunt mollis, felis mi scelerisque mauris, ut facilisis leo magna accumsan sapien. In rutrum vehicula nisl eget tempor. Nullam maximus ullamcorper libero non maximus. Integer ultricies velit id convallis varius. Praesent eu nisl eu urna finibus ultrices id nec ex. Mauris ac mattis quam. Fusce aliquam est nec sapien bibendum, vitae malesuada ligula condimentum.

Float to right

Dark/Light mode & Shadow

The image below will toggle dark/light mode based on theme preference, notice it has shadows.

Video

{% include embed/youtube.html id=’Balreaj8Yqs’ %}

Reverse Footnote

Customize the Favicon

The favicons of Chirpy are placed in the directory assets/img/favicons/. You may want to replace them with your own. The following sections will guide you to create and replace the default favicons.

Generate the favicon

Prepare a square image (PNG, JPG, or SVG) with a size of 512x512 or more, and then go to the online tool Real Favicon Generator and click the button Pick your favicon image to upload your image file.

In the next step, the webpage will show all usage scenarios. You can keep the default options, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the button Next → to generate the favicon.

Download & Replace

Download the generated package, unzip and delete the following file(s) from the extracted files:

site.webmanifest

And then copy the remaining image files (.PNG, .ICO and .SVG) to cover the original files in the directory assets/img/favicons/ of your Jekyll site. If your Jekyll site doesn’t have this directory yet, just create one.

The following table will help you understand the changes to the favicon files:

File(s)	From Online Tool	From Chirpy
`*.PNG`	✓	✗
`*.ICO`	✓	✗
`*.SVG`	✓	✗

✓ means keep, ✗ means delete.

The next time you build the site, the favicon will be replaced with a customized edition.

The footnote source ↩︎
The 2nd footnote source ↩︎

Blogging, Tutorial

Guidere

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.

Naming and Path

Front Matter

Timezone of Date

Categories and Tags

Author Information

Post Description

Table of Contents

Comments

Media

URL Prefix

Images

Caption

Size

Position

Dark/Light mode

Shadow

Preview Image

LQIP

Social Media Platforms

Video Files

Audio Files

Pinned Posts

Prompts

Syntax

Inline Code

Filepath Highlight

Code Block

Specifying Language

Line Number

Specifying the Filename

Liquid Codes

Mathematics

Mermaid

Learn More

Getting Started

description: >-

Creating a Site Repository

Option 1. Using the Starter (Recommended)

Option 2. Forking the Theme

Setting up the Environment

Using Dev Containers (Recommended for Windows)

Setting up Natively (Recommended for Unix-like OS)

Usage

Start the Jekyll Server

Configuration

Social Contact Options

Customizing the Stylesheet

Customizing Static Assets

Deployment

Deploy Using Github Actions

Manual Build and Deployment

Text and Typography

Headings

H1 — heading

H2 — heading

H3 — heading

H4 — heading

Paragraph

Lists

Ordered list

Unordered list

ToDo list

Description list

Block Quote

Prompts

Tables

Links

Footnote

Inline code

Filepath

Code blocks

Common

Specific Language

Specific filename

Mathematics

Mermaid SVG

Images

Default (with caption)

Left aligned

Float to left