Basically Basic

Basically Basic is a minimal Jekyll theme that replaces the default Minima with responsive layouts, six color skins, and optional Algolia or Lunr site search.

What is Basically Basic?

Basically Basic is an open-source Jekyll theme created by Michael Rose (mademistakes.com) as a feature-enhanced substitute for Jekyll's default Minima theme. It runs on Jekyll 3.5+ and can be installed either as a Ruby gem (for self-hosted sites) or as a remote theme (for GitHub Pages). The theme takes standard Jekyll content — posts, pages, collections, and data files — and renders a responsive static site with layouts for home, blog posts, categories, tags, about, and a CV/resume page.

Key Features

• Six customizable skins — Choose from default, night, plum, sea, soft, or steel color schemes by setting a variable in _data/theme.yml.
• Resume/CV layout — Render a curriculum vitæ from a JSON file exported by JSON Resume's in-browser builder, saved as _data/cv.json.
• Site-wide search — Use Lunr (works on GitHub Pages with no extra setup) or Algolia (requires a free Community plan and the jekyll-algolia gem) by setting search_provider in _config.yml.
• Disqus comments and Google Analytics — Enable both by adding your shortname or tracking ID to _config.yml; scripts only load in production builds.
• SEO-friendly — Integrates Jekyll SEO Tag, jekyll-feed, jekyll-sitemap, and jekyll-paginate plugins for metadata, feeds, and pagination.
• Customizable navigation — Build an off-canvas menu from any list of page paths via navigation_pages in _data/theme.yml.
• SVG icon set — Includes optimized 16x16 SVGs for social networks (GitHub, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) plus helper includes for linking with a username and label.
• Layouts for content organization — Includes layouts for posts, pages, home (with optional grid view), posts-by-year, categories, tags, collections, category pages, and tag pages.

Who is it for?

• Jekyll bloggers — Anyone running a Jekyll site on GitHub Pages who wants a modern alternative to the default Minima without building a theme from scratch; install via the 1.4.5 remote theme line in _config.yml.
• Developers building a personal site — Users who need an "about" page with an author picture, a blog with reading time, Disqus comments, and Google Analytics, all configured through YAML front matter.
• Job seekers or academics — Those who want a structured CV/resume page using the JSON Resume standard, which can be edited in a browser and saved as a local JSON file.
• Open-source contributors — People who want to customize the theme's Sass partials, JavaScript, or layouts; the repo documents how to override files and run a local preview with bundle exec rake preview.

What can you do with Basically Basic?

• Publish a blog with pagination — Set paginate: 5 and paginate_path in _config.yml, create an index.html with layout: home, and get numbered post listings across multiple pages.
• Add instant search — Enable Lunr by adding search: true to _config.yml; for Algolia, add your API credentials and run bundle exec jekyll algolia to index posts.
• Show a portfolio or collection — Use the collection layout to display all documents from a collection (e.g., recipes) on a single page, with options to sort by title or date and display as a grid.
• Customize the look without touching code — Change the skin, load Google Fonts, and rewrite UI text by editing only _data/theme.yml, avoiding changes to layouts or Sass.

FAQ

Is Basically Basic free?

Yes. The theme is distributed under the MIT License, which permits free personal and commercial use with attribution. The source code and documentation are publicly available on GitHub.

How do I install Basically Basic on GitHub Pages?

Add remote_theme: "mmistakes/jekyll-theme-basically-basic@1.4.5" to your _config.yml (removing any other theme: or remote_theme: entries), and ensure your Gemfile includes gem "github-pages", group: :jekyll_plugins. Your site rebuilds automatically on push.

Does the Lunr search index the entire post?

By default, only the first 50 words of each post or page are added to the Lunr search index. Setting search_full_content: true in _config.yml includes the full body, but this may slow page load on large sites.

Can I disable comments on a single post?

Yes. Add comments: false to the post's front matter. By default, Disqus comments are enabled everywhere in production builds (JEKYLL_ENV=production) when a shortname is configured.

What are the main differences from Minima?

Basically Basic adds responsive design with six skins, a JSON-powered CV layout, site-wide search (Lunr or Algolia), Disqus/Google Analytics integration, and Jekyll SEO Tag support — features that Minima lacks or leaves to additional plugins.