Running and testing your Jekyll site locally with custom options

Developing with Jekyll often requires running your site locally to test changes before deploying them live. Here is a handy yet useful one-line command that I usually use to run my Jekyll site locally with custom options.

Running and testing your Jekyll site locally with custom options. Image created with DALL·E.

My main go-to command for running my Jekyll site locally is:

bundle exec jekyll serve --port 8000 --livereload --future

Let’s go through each part of the command to understand its purpose

bundle exec

• Function: Launches a Ruby program in the environment of the current Gem bundle.
• Why It’s Important: Ensures that all gems listed in your Jekyll site’s Gemfile are correctly loaded and used. This prevents version conflicts between different Jekyll projects and ensures a consistent development environment.

jekyll serve

• Function: Builds your Jekyll site and starts a local web server.
• Why It’s Important: Allows you to view your site in a web browser by navigating to localhost:4000 (or another specified port). It’s essential for the development and testing of your site, providing a real-time preview of your work.

--port 8000

• Function: Changes the default port on which the server runs from 4000 to 8000.
• Why It’s Important: Useful if port 4000 is already in use or if you want to run multiple Jekyll instances simultaneously. Access your site by entering localhost:8000 in your browser.

--livereload

• Function: Enables the LiveReload feature.
• Why It’s Important: Automatically reloads the website in the browser whenever you make changes to the code. This saves time as you don’t need to manually refresh to see updates.

--future

• Function: Includes posts with a future date in the build.
• Why It’s Important: Useful for previewing scheduled posts or posts with a future date. Without this option, Jekyll will not include posts with a future date in the build. In my next post, I further discuss how to deal with future posts in Jekyll.

Summary

For my workflow, this command is a powerful tool and may be for other Jekyll developers as well. It ensures your development environment is correctly set up, allows testing your website on a specific port, and boosts your productivity with automatic reloading upon code changes.