A static site on Jekyll + GitHub Pages is fast, free to host, and works great with an AI-assisted editor. This post assumes you’re using something like Cursor, Codex, or Copilot to generate most of the code—so we’ll focus on what to ask for, what to configure, and where to read more instead of typing everything by hand.

What You Need

  • Ruby (3.1+). Check with ruby -v. rbenv or RubyInstaller if you need to install.
  • Git and a GitHub account.
  • Bundler: gem install bundler if you don’t have it.

Official intro: Jekyll quick start.

1. Scaffold the Site (Prompts That Work)

You don’t have to run jekyll new and then rip out the default theme. You can have your AI generate a minimal site from a short spec.

Example prompts:

  • “Create a minimal Jekyll 4 site: Gemfile, _config.yml, _layouts/default.html, index.md, and one blog post in _posts. Use kramdown and Rouge for code highlighting.”
  • “Add an About page and a blog listing page to my Jekyll site. Use Liquid and keep the same default layout.”

That gives you a repo with _config.yml, _layouts, _includes, _posts, and maybe assets/css. From there you can iterate with more specific prompts (e.g. “add a theme toggle”, “add a CNAME for custom domain in the GitHub Actions workflow”).

Off-the-shelf alternative: Use a theme. Minimal Mistakes, Just the Docs, and Jekyll Themes are good starting points. Add the theme gem to your Gemfile and set theme: minimal-mistakes (or the theme name) in _config.yml. Your AI can then help you override specific layouts or add features.

2. Configuration You’ll Touch

_config.yml drives the site. Key bits:

Setting What it does
title, url Site name and canonical URL (e.g. https://www.yoursite.com).
baseurl Leave "" if you use a custom domain at the root. Set to "/repo-name" only if you’re on username.github.io/repo-name and want correct asset paths.
permalink e.g. permalink: /post/:title/ so posts live at /post/my-post-title/.
markdown kramdown with input: GFM is a solid default.
highlighter rouge for syntax highlighting in code blocks.
plugins Common: jekyll-sitemap, jekyll-feed, jekyll-seo-tag.

Prompt idea: “In _config.yml add jekyll-sitemap, jekyll-feed, and jekyll-seo-tag to the plugins list and set permalink to /post/:title/.”

3. Themes and Styling

Out of the box: Jekyll doesn’t ship a “default theme” in the same way in Jekyll 4; you use a gem-based theme or your own CSS. Gem themes (e.g. Minimal Mistakes) give you a full look and many options; your AI can help you override a single layout or add a custom CSS variable.

Custom look: If you’re building your own (like a simple blog with one assets/css/style.css), you can ask for:

  • “Add CSS variables for background, text, accent, and border. Use them in the layout and in a dark/light theme class on body.”
  • “Add a theme toggle (e.g. sepia vs dark) that saves the choice in localStorage and applies a class to body.”

Rouge (syntax highlighting) uses classes like .highlight .k, .highlight .s—your AI can generate a small “Rouge theme” block in your CSS for light and dark backgrounds.

4. Content and Front Matter

Posts go in _posts/ with names like YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md. Front matter drives the layout and URL:

---
layout: post
title: "Your Post Title"
permalink: /post/your-custom-slug/   # optional; else from title/slug
read_time: 4
---

Prompts: “Create a new Jekyll post for [topic] with front matter: layout post, title, and read_time.” or “Add an excerpt to my post front matter and show it on the blog index.”

5. GitHub Pages: Get It Online

Enable Pages: Repo → Settings → Pages. Under “Build and deployment”, choose GitHub Actions (recommended).

Build workflow: You need a workflow that runs bundle install and bundle exec jekyll build, then uploads _site with actions/upload-pages-artifact and deploys with actions/deploy-pages. GitHub’s own “Jekyll” template under Actions is a good start; if you use a custom domain at the root, build without --baseurl so links and assets work (e.g. run: bundle exec jekyll build).

Docs (use these instead of re-explaining everything):

Custom domain in short: Add your domain in Settings → Pages. In your DNS (e.g. GoDaddy), point www to your GitHub Pages hostname with a CNAME (e.g. www → username.github.io). For the apex (e.g. yoursite.com), use A records to GitHub’s IPs (see the docs). After DNS and verification, enable Enforce HTTPS.

6. What to Ask Your AI Next

  • “Add a sitemap and RSS feed to my Jekyll site using jekyll-sitemap and jekyll-feed.”
  • “Add client-side search that filters the post list by title and excerpt.”
  • “Generate a GitHub Actions workflow that builds my Jekyll site with Ruby 3.2 and deploys to GitHub Pages.”
  • “My links on the custom domain have a double path (e.g. /repo-name/post/…). Fix the build so baseurl is empty for the production build.”

Summary

Use your AI to scaffold a minimal Jekyll site, then refine with prompts about config, themes, and content. Rely on official Jekyll and GitHub docs for deep dives; use this post as a map to what to configure and what to ask for so you spend less time on boilerplate and more on content and design.

Further reading: Jekyll docs, GitHub Pages docs, Liquid.