Build Your GitHub Portfolio

Step 1 — Your GitHub account

Some of you already have a GitHub account from this program (you needed one to look at the ComplianceGPT code). If you don't yet, go to github.com/join and create one now — it's free.

Step 2 — The one rule that makes GitHub Pages work

GitHub will host a website for free directly from a repository, but there's a special naming rule you need to know before you pick a template:

Repo name	What you get	URL
<username>.github.io	Your main personal site — one per account	https://<username>.github.io
Anything else, e.g. my-project	A project page — as many as you want	https://<username>.github.io/my-project

For your main portfolio, the repository name must match your GitHub username exactly (case doesn't matter, but the spelling does), and the repo must be public. If you mistype it — even one character off — GitHub will not turn it into your username.github.io site. It'll just be a regular repo that happens to be named that.

Step 3 — Pick a Jekyll template

GitHub Pages runs on a static-site generator called Jekyll. You don't need to build a site from nothing — start from a template repo, then make it yours. Here are three solid, actively-maintained options depending on what you want:

Not sure? Pick al-folio. It's the one most REU/research students end up with, and its README walks through the exact steps below.

Step 4 — Get the template into your own account

Step 5 — Turn on GitHub Pages

Step 6 — Set up local editing (recommended)

You can technically edit files directly on github.com, but for anything beyond a typo, you want to preview changes on your own machine before pushing them live.

# Clone your new site to your computer
git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/<your-username>.github.io.git
cd <your-username>.github.io

# Install Ruby (macOS, via Homebrew) if you don't already have it
brew install ruby

# Install Jekyll + the project's exact gem versions
gem install bundler
bundle install

# Serve the site locally with live rebuilds
bundle exec jekyll serve

# Now open http://localhost:4000 in your browser

Every template's README has slightly different local-setup instructions (some, like al-folio, offer a Docker option too) — if the commands above don't match, follow the template's own README first.

Step 7 — Make it yours

Almost every Jekyll template is configured from one file: _config.yml, at the repo root. Open it and change at minimum:

• name / title — your name
• description / bio — one or two sentences about you
• email, GitHub, LinkedIn, etc. — your real links (delete any social links you don't use)
• avatar / profile picture — swap the placeholder image in /assets/img/

Step 8 — The commit/push loop (how you update it, forever)

This is the one workflow you'll repeat every time you want to change anything about your site — today, and years from now:

# 1. Make your edits in a text editor / VS Code, save the files

# 2. See what changed
git status

# 3. Stage the files you want to commit
git add .

# 4. Commit with a short message describing the change
git commit -m "Add REU research project to portfolio"

# 5. Push to GitHub
git push

That's it. Pushing to main automatically re-triggers the build (check the Actions tab for progress), and your live site updates within a minute or two. No separate "deploy" step.

Final Checklist