CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

What this is

Francesco Bailo’s academic personal site — a Jekyll site built on the remote theme mmistakes/minimal-mistakes, hosted on GitHub Pages (custom domain via CNAME: francescobailo.net).

Commands

bundle install          # install gems (first time / after Gemfile changes)
bundle exec jekyll serve # run local dev server (http://localhost:4000), rebuild on save
bundle exec jekyll build # build the static site into _site/

There is no test suite, linter, or CI config in this repo — changes are verified by building/serving locally and checking pages render.

Architecture

This is a content-only Jekyll repository (no custom plugins/Ruby code). The two things to understand are the collection system and the link-post pattern.

Collections hold the actual content

Site content lives in per-type collections declared in _config.yml, each with its own directory and defaults block: _peer-reviewed-articles, _books, _book-sections, _research-reports, _news-articles, _media-appereances, _research-presentations, _teaching-units, _preprint-articles.

Every item in these collections:

Is a single Markdown file named with an 8-character alphanumeric key (a Zotero item key, e.g. 5CQTZXZP.md), not a slug.
Sets its own permalink: "/<KEY>/" in front matter, so the item is reachable at the site root (e.g. francescobailo.net/5CQTZXZP/), independent of which collection it lives in.
Carries citation-style metadata in front matter — authors, date, publication, doi, publication-url, abstract, excerpt, plus type-specific fields (e.g. presentations use presentation-title, presenters, meeting-name, place; media appearances use program).

Listing pages in _pages/ (e.g. research-publications.md, research-presentations.md) pull from these collections at build time via Liquid, e.g.:


 ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...

When adding a new collection or renaming front-matter fields, update both the _config.yml collection/defaults block and every listing page that loops over site.<collection>.

`_posts` are mostly short “link posts”

Almost all files in _posts/ (63 of 65) are minimal stub posts whose entire body is a link: front-matter field pointing at one of the permalink pages above, e.g.:

---
title: "📻  ABC @ Antropic, Mythos and Fable"
permalink: "/2026/06/16/abc-antropic-mythos-fable/"
date: "2026-06-16"
tags:
  - link
link: https://francescobailo.net/6TIP8P66/
---

These act as chronological blog/feed entries (“I published X”) that reference the canonical collection item rather than duplicating its content. When adding a new publication/presentation/media item, the usual flow is: (1) add the collection item under its 8-char key, (2) add a short dated link-post in _posts/ pointing to /<KEY>/.

Front matter defaults

_config.yml sets defaults: per collection/type (layout, author_profile, share, sidebar nav). Most collection items use layout: single with author_profile: false and a sidebar: nav: sidebar block; _posts and _pages use author_profile: true. Sidebar navigation itself is defined in _data/navigation.yml (main = top nav, sidebar = the Research/Teaching/Media sidebar tree) — new top-level sections need an entry there.

Static pages

_pages/ holds the site’s static/listing pages (About, CV links, statements, and the publication/presentation listing pages described above). _pages is explicitly included via include: in _config.yml since Jekyll doesn’t process underscore-prefixed dirs by default.

Embedding video

To embed a video player (not just a link) in a collection item’s body, use the Minimal Mistakes theme’s built-in include:

<!-- Courtesy of embedresponsively.com -->

  <div class="responsive-video-container">
    <iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/VIDEO_ID" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
  </div>

Items with an embedded video should also get "video" added to their categories front matter.

Sourcing metadata from Zotero

Francesco tracks his publications/presentations/media appearances in Zotero, keyed by the same 8-character item key used for filenames in this repo. When creating or fixing a collection item, use the zotero MCP tools (zotero_item_metadata, zotero_search_items, zotero_item_fulltext) to pull authoritative title/date/author/presenter/DOI/URL fields for that key rather than guessing.