Local Development Setup

Prerequisites

The system currently has Ruby 2.6.10 installed. For optimal Jekyll development, we recommend:

Option 1: Use rbenv (Recommended)

# Install rbenv
brew install rbenv

# Install Ruby 3.1
rbenv install 3.1.0
rbenv local 3.1.0

# Install dependencies
bundle install

# Run development server
bundle exec jekyll serve

Option 2: Use Docker

# Create docker-compose.yml
cat > docker-compose.yml << 'EOF'
version: '3'
services:
  jekyll:
    image: jekyll/jekyll:4
    command: jekyll serve --watch --force_polling --host 0.0.0.0
    ports:
      - 4000:4000
    volumes:
      - .:/srv/jekyll
    environment:
      - JEKYLL_ENV=development
EOF

# Run with Docker
docker-compose up

Verification

Once setup is complete, the website should be available at:

• Local: http://localhost:4000
• Network: http://0.0.0.0:4000 (if using Docker)

File Watching

The development server will automatically rebuild when files change:

• Markdown content (pages and posts)
• SCSS files in _sass/
• Configuration in _config.yml (requires server restart)

Common Issues

1. Permission errors: Use rbenv or Docker instead of system Ruby
2. Port conflicts: Change port with --port 4001
3. Slow rebuilds: Jekyll 4.0+ includes incremental builds by default

GitHub Pages Testing

To test the exact GitHub Pages environment:

# Install github-pages gem
gem install github-pages

# Serve with GitHub Pages gem
github-pages serve