Blog post guide

Create a post

Add a Markdown file to _posts/. Its filename must use Jekyll’s YYYY-MM-DD-short-slug.md format, for example:

_posts/2026-07-25-digital-life.md

Start it with front matter like this:

---
title: "What Makes a Digital System Alive?"
date: 2026-07-25
categories:
  - Research Notes
excerpt: "Toward a minimal formal definition of digital life."
header:
  teaser: /images/posts/digital-life-cover.webp
---

excerpt is recommended for a carefully written card summary. If it is omitted, Jekyll’s generated excerpt is used. The theme defaults enable the article layout, author profile, and calculated reading time automatically.

Cover images

Store local cover files in images/posts/ and reference them with a root-relative path as shown above. Use a 16:9 image (1600 × 900 px is a useful working size), compress it before committing, and prefer WebP for photographic or rendered images. A descriptive image is best, but avoid putting essential information only inside the image.

The card chooses header.teaser first, then image, then images/posts/default-cover.svg. Posts without a cover therefore remain complete and do not show a broken-image placeholder.

Preview locally

Install the repository’s Ruby dependencies once, then run:

bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve

Open http://127.0.0.1:4000/blog/. Drafts remain unpublished unless the server is started with bundle exec jekyll serve --drafts.