Using Jekyll with Bundler
Bundler provides a consistent environment for Ruby projects by tracking and installing the exact gems and versions that are needed.
Bundler can be a great tool to use with Jekyll. Because it tracks dependencies on a per-project basis, it is particularly useful if you need to run different versions of Jekyll in different projects.
In addition, because it can (optionally) install dependencies in the project
folder, it can help you avoid permissions issues you might otherwise run into.
The usual way to use Jekyll is to install Jekyll to the system’s default gem
installation directory and then run jekyll new. In this tutorial, we’ll show
you how to create a new Jekyll project using Bundler and without installing gems
outside the project directory.
This is not the simplest way to start using Jekyll
This tutorial helps you get Jekyll set up using Bundler, and optionally without any system-wide gem installations. If prefer installing the jekyll command to your default gem installation directory, you might want the Quickstart.
Before You Begin
To complete this tutorial, you’ll need to have Ruby and Bundler installed. You can find the installation instructions on their websites.
Initialize Bundler
The first thing to do is create a new directory for your project and run
bundle init. This creates a new Bundler project (by creating an empty
Gemfile).
mkdir my-jekyll-website
cd my-jekyll-website
bundle init
Configure Bundler Install Path
This step is optional. In this step, we’re going to configure Bundler to install
gems in the ./vendor/bundle/ project subdirectory. The advantage of doing this
is that bundler will install gems within your project folder instead of the
location used by gem install. This can help you avoid permissions errors you
might otherwise get during gem installation, depending how you installed Ruby.
If you skip this step, Bundler will install your dependencies to the location
used by gem install.
bundle config set --local path 'vendor/bundle'
Bundler Config is Persistent
This step is only required once per project. Bundler saves your config in
./.bundle/config, so future gems will be installed to the same
location.
Add Jekyll
Now, we’re going to use Bundler to add Jekyll as a dependency of our new
project. This command will add the Jekyll gem to our Gemfile and install it to
the ./vendor/bundle/ folder (or your default gem installation directory if you
didn’t set a custom path).
bundle add jekyll
Create A Jekyll Scaffold
Now that Jekyll is installed, we can use it to create the scaffolding for our
site. We need the --force parameter because our folder isn’t empty - it
already has some Bundler files in it. We run the bundle install separately
because Jekyll gets confused if the Gemfile already exists.
bundle exec jekyll new --force --skip-bundle .
bundle install
Serve the Site
Your new website is ready! You can serve the website with
bundle exec jekyll serve and visit it at
http://127.0.0.1:4000. From here, you’re ready to
continue developing the site on your own. All of the normal Jekyll commands are
available to you, but you should prefix them with bundle exec so that Bundler
runs the version of Jekyll that is installed in your project folder.
Commit to Source Control
If you’re storing your new site in version control, you’ll want to ignore the
./vendor/ and ./.bundle/ folders since they contain user- or
platform-specific information. New users will be able to install the correct
dependencies based on Gemfile and Gemfile.lock, which should both be checked
in. You can use this .gitignore to get started, if you want.
.gitignore
# Ignore metadata generated by Jekyll
_site/
.sass-cache/
.jekyll-cache/
.jekyll-metadata
# Ignore folders generated by Bundler
.bundle/
vendor/