Let’s check out the core files for your website. Go to your own repository at http://GITHUB-USERNAME.github.io/REPOSITORY. All of the files are important in their own way, but we’re going to focus on the folders and files that most directly create our website.
_includes directoryThis directory hold files that are typically small bits of code (called snippets) that appear on more than one page, like a nav bar or footer. This way, if you want to change the footer on all your site pages, you can change it in just one spot.
_layouts directoryThis directory provides the basic templates for different kinds of pages. When you make a new page on your site, you will assign a layout to that page.
essays directoryThis directory could be named anything–it’s just a place to put separate essays. You might have many of these directories for essays on different topics, like historic sites, campus buildings, etc.
guides directoryThis directory has code examples of how to make certain things on your site. You might keep this around while you’re learning and building your site, but you can always delete it when you’re done. All the documentation is also available at the main Xanthan site.
You’ll notice that you have a few pages in the root directory of your repository, like credits.md and about.md.
To understand the basics of how pages work, let’s examine and make a small change to your homepage, the index.md file. Open this file in your text editor.
You’ll notice the file begins with something like
---
title: Getting Started
layout: base
date: 2024-12-02
---
This is called a YAML header. All pages must have a similar metadata block at the very top, with the title customized for each page. For now, it is enough to know that this block of metadata tells GitHub Pages that it should be part of your website. Be sure you have the 3 hyphens --- before and after your metadata on their own lines.
The index page uses the base layout.
One of the great features of GitHub Pages is that it allows you to write pages in Markdown rather than HTML. If you are new to Markdown, complete this Markdown tutorial. If you need syntax help, check out this cheat sheet.
If you want to write online and preview your Markdown text as you write, use Dillinger. It saves your work as you go. When you are done writing, you can simply copy and paste your text from Dillinger into the edit window on GitHub. Once you get used to the syntax, you won’t need to preview it—you can just write!
To understand more about pages and editing, move on to the Editing your site guide.