Lab Website Template

Lab Website Template (LWT) is a Jekyll-based website template for research laboratories that automates citation generation and GitHub-based site deployment.

What is Lab Website Template?

Lab Website Template is an easy-to-use, flexible website template for labs, built on Git, GitHub, and Jekyll. It takes simple identifiers such as DOIs, PubMed IDs, or ORCIDs and automatically generates formatted citations with titles, authors, publishers, and dates using Manubot. The template is maintained by the Greene Lab and distributed through GitHub with documentation on GitBook. It produces a complete lab website with team member pages, blog posts, and component-based layouts that work on desktop and mobile.

Key Features

• Automated citations — Generate full citations from identifiers like DOI, PubMed, ORCID, and more via Manubot, turning codes such as doi:1234/5678 into title, authors, publisher, and date.
• Component-based building blocks — A suite of pre-made components for formatted tables, code blocks, figures, citation thumbnails, and filterable lists for large data sets.
• Automatic pull request previews — Every pull request gets a preview deployment, letting you review changes before merging.
• Easy automated configuration — Configuration is handled automatically, reducing manual setup overhead.
• Team member pages — Provide bios, roles, and social media links for each lab member.
• Blog support — Write posts with tags and rich content, fully integrated into the site structure.
• Responsive design — Works and looks good on both desktop and mobile devices.
• Documentation and support — Includes dedicated documentation on GitBook and support from the community.

Who should use Lab Website Template?

This template is ideal for research laboratories that want a professional web presence without rebuilding a site from scratch. Lab principal investigators can quickly launch a site with publication lists and team bios. Lab managers can maintain the site through GitHub workflows without deep web development knowledge. Researchers and postdocs can add blog posts and update their profiles using simple Markdown files and identifiers.

What can you do with Lab Website Template?

• Publish lab publications: Add a DOI or PubMed ID and the template fetches the full citation, complete with thumbnails and rich details, building an up-to-date publication list automatically.
• Showcase team members: Create individual pages with bios, roles, and social media links, and organize team members with flexible filters.
• Start a lab blog: Write posts with tags and rich content to share news, tutorials, or research updates directly from the website.
• Preview changes safely: Use pull requests to propose changes, and automatic previews let you see exactly how the site will look before it goes live.

How does Lab Website Template work?

The workflow revolves around GitHub and Jekyll. A lab collaborator edits Markdown files in the repository, adds citation identifiers for publications, and opens a pull request. The template automatically builds a Jekyll site, generates citations via Manubot, and creates a preview of the result. Once merged, the live site is updated. The full setup and usage instructions are in the GitBook documentation linked from the repository.

FAQ

Is Lab Website Template free to use?

The template is hosted openly on GitHub under the greenelab organization, and the repository is publicly accessible. The project page does not specify a license, but it is distributed as a reusable template without any mention of paid tiers or fees.

What static site generator does it use?

Lab Website Template is built on Jekyll, a popular static site generator written in Ruby. It works with Git and GitHub for version control and automated builds.

How do I generate citations?

You simply provide a simple identifier like a DOI, PubMed ID, or ORCID. The template uses Manubot to automatically fetch the metadata and produce a formatted citation with title, authors, publisher, and date.

Can I see a preview before publishing?

Yes. The template is configured to create automatic pull request previews. Any changes you make in a pull request are built and previewed so you can review the result before merging.

Does the template work on mobile devices?

Yes, the template is designed to be responsive and looks good on both desktop and mobile screens.