Jackal is a very lightweight, responsive Jekyll theme for personal blogs and portfolio sites, built to turn Jekyll posts and pages into a static site with minimal setup.
What is Jackal?
Jackal is an open-source Jekyll theme that provides a minimal structure for a personal blog or portfolio. It accepts standard Jekyll content — Markdown posts and pages with YAML front matter — and outputs a fully static HTML site that includes an intro page, an about page, article listings, archives, pagination, an RSS feed, code syntax highlighting, and Google Analytics tracking. The theme requires the Ruby gems jekyll and jekyll-paginate and is released under the MIT License by the Jackal Authors.
Key Features
- Intro page — A front-page layout for presenting a short introduction or welcome message.
- About page — A dedicated page for a biography or site description.
- Articles, archives and pagination — Posts are automatically listed, archived, and paginated using
jekyll-paginate. - RSS feed — A built-in feed output for subscribing to new posts.
- Responsive design — The layout adapts to different screen sizes and emphasizes typography.
- Code syntax highlighting — Code blocks in posts are highlighted for readability.
- Google Analytics tracking — Includes a tracking code placeholder for site analytics.
- Front matter options — Pages support
title,subtitle, anddesc; posts supportmicrotitleanddescfor custom titles, SEO descriptions, and excerpts.
Who is it for?
- Personal bloggers — Publish articles with minimal configuration and a clean reading experience.
- Developers — Use as a starting point for a Jekyll site to showcase projects or write technical posts.
- Portfolio owners — Use the intro and about pages to present yourself and list work as posts or pages.
What can you do with Jackal?
- Bloggers: Customize each post's display title via
microtitleand supply a manual excerpt or SEO description viadesc. - Site builders: Adjust global settings in
config.ymland deploy the static site to GitHub Pages (the demo lives at clenemt.github.io/jackal) or any Jekyll-compatible host. - Designers: Fork the theme, modify the HTML/CSS, and reuse it freely under the MIT License.
How does Jackal work?
Install the required gems, clone the repository, and run jekyll serve for local development. The theme reads posts and pages from standard Jekyll directories and applies the front matter options to control titles, subtitles, and descriptions.
Pricing
Jackal is free and open source under the MIT License. There are no paid tiers or premium features.
Alternatives
- Kactus — Another Jekyll theme that inspired Jackal, mentioned in the theme's acknowledgments.
- jaicab — A Jekyll-based personal site theme referenced as an inspiration for Jackal.
FAQ
Is Jackal free?
Yes, Jackal is released under the MIT License, so it is free to use, modify, and redistribute with attribution.
What do I need to run Jackal?
You need to have both jekyll and jekyll-paginate gems installed, along with Ruby and Jekyll's dependencies.
How can I deploy a Jackal site?
After cloning and customizing the theme, you can build it with Jekyll and host the static output on GitHub Pages or any web server.
What front matter fields does Jackal support?
For pages: title, subtitle, and desc. For posts: microtitle (used as the page title) and desc (used as the manual excerpt and SEO description).
