Yue Chu

Yue Chu

Population health scientist & demographer

CLAUDE.md

CLAUDE.md

This file is the working guide for this website repository. It is meant to keep future edits consistent across Codex, Claude, and manual maintenance.

Authority

  • Treat this file as the current source of truth for site structure and maintenance conventions.
  • AGENT.md is historical context from an earlier redesign pass and may reference old file locations. Use CLAUDE.md when the two disagree.

Site Basics

  • Framework: Jekyll / Academic Pages / Minimal Mistakes
  • Hosting target: GitHub Pages
  • Build constraint: static-site compatible, no unsupported plugins
  • Main config: _config.yml
  • Main navigation: _data/navigation.yml

Top-level navigation content should live in folders that match the nav tabs.

  • Home: _pages/about.md
  • Research: _research/index.md
  • Projects: _projects/index.md plus item pages in _projects/*.md
  • Publications: _publications/index.md plus structured entries in _publications/*.md
  • Presentations: _presentations/index.md (full list lives in the page front matter; replaced the old _talks/ collection)
  • Software: _software/index.md
  • Teaching & Mentoring: _teaching/index.md
  • News: _news/index.md
  • Personal: _personal/index.md (kept in secondary/footer navigation)
  • CV route: _pages/cv.md

Primary and secondary navigation are defined in _data/navigation.yml. The primary job-market navigation is Research, Publications, Projects, Software, Teaching & Mentoring, and CV. Presentations, News, and Personal are secondary/footer links.

  • Served CV file: files/Yue_Chu_CV.pdf
  • CV source materials: _CV/
  • CV build command (outputs the source directly to the served file, so no manual copy/drift): quarto render _CV/Yue_Chu_CV.qmd --output-dir ../files
  • Legacy consulting route: _pages/consulting.md redirects to the consulting section on /projects/

Core Principle

If a section appears in the main website navigation, there should be one obvious matching folder where its content is maintained.

That means:

  • Do keep nav-owned content in its matching folder.
  • Do not scatter the same section across _pages/ and _data/ unless there is a strong technical reason.
  • Do not create duplicate routed pages for nav sections in _pages/ if a folder-backed version already exists.

Current Structure Pattern

There are two patterns in use:

  1. Single-file section pages
    • Used for research, software, teaching, news, and personal
    • The section lives in that folder’s index.md
    • Structured lists for that section live in front matter arrays on the same file
  2. Collection-backed sections
    • Used for projects and publications
    • The section landing page lives at that folder’s index.md
    • Individual items live as separate Markdown files in the same folder
    • Consulting and technical assistance entries are part of _projects/*.md and should use project_group: consulting

Important Implementation Detail

Folder landing pages inside collections use:

entry_type: index

This matters because archive loops must exclude the index document.

Examples:

  • _projects/index.md
  • _publications/index.md
  • _teaching/index.md

When filtering collection items, always exclude entry_type: index.

Editing Rules

  • When updating a nav section, edit the matching folder first.
  • For curated research themes, edit _research/index.md.
  • For software listings, edit _software/index.md.
  • For curated news items, edit _news/index.md.
  • For curated personal sections and fun updates, edit _personal/index.md.
  • For publications used on the landing page and homepage, edit the structured entries in _publications/*.md; use featured: true sparingly for homepage selections.
  • For presentations, edit _presentations/index.md.
  • For project cards and project detail pages, edit _projects/*.md.
  • For consulting and technical assistance entries, create or edit _projects/*.md with project_group: consulting.
  • For publication detail pages, edit _publications/*.md.
  • For Teaching & Mentoring content, edit _teaching/index.md.

Publication Schema

Publication entries in _publications/*.md should use these fields when available:

  • publication_type: peer_reviewed, working_paper, dissertation, thesis, or report
  • publication_order: numeric display order within its type (ascending, newest first)
  • publication_year: display year
  • authors: compact HTML-ready author string with Yue Chu emphasized using <strong> when named
  • venue_details: journal/report details shown on the landing page
  • featured: optional boolean for the small homepage selection

  • detail_page: boolean controlling whether the landing-page title links to the detail page

  • paper_page_url: external landing page for the paper
  • doi: DOI string without extra prose
  • doi_url: DOI resolver URL
  • pdf_url: direct PDF URL, either local or external
  • code_url: code repository or download link
  • code_label: optional custom label such as Code and data
  • poster_url: poster PDF URL when available

Legacy compatibility:

  • Keep paperurl populated for now because some older helper scripts still read it.

Publication Assets

Recommended local asset folders:

  • Publication PDFs: assets/pdfs/publications/
  • Posters: assets/pdfs/posters/

Current status:

  • Some older paper PDFs still live in files/. That is acceptable for now.
  • New local publication assets should prefer the assets/pdfs/... structure unless there is a specific reason to keep them in files/.

Design / UX Principles

  • Keep the site academically professional but not visually cold.
  • Prefer clear hierarchy, restrained color, and readable spacing over heavy decoration.
  • Reuse includes for repeated cards and summary blocks.
  • Preserve mobile responsiveness.
  • Preserve existing public URLs whenever practical.

Do

  • Keep reusable display logic in _includes/
  • Keep styling changes in the existing Sass/CSS structure
  • Keep the homepage lightweight and directional
  • Keep the GitHub Pages build compatible
  • Add new nav sections only with a matching folder and clear ownership

Do Not

  • Do not reintroduce nav-owned content into _data/research.yml, _data/news.yml, etc.
  • Do not create a second copy of a nav page in _pages/ after a folder-backed version exists.
  • Do not remove entry_type: index from collection landing pages without updating the archive logic.
  • Do not add unsupported plugins or build steps that break GitHub Pages.
  • Do not change public permalinks casually.

Current Decisions

  • The homepage remains in _pages/about.md because it is the root route and is not part of the main nav list.
  • The CV remains a direct PDF experience. /cv/ redirects to files/Yue_Chu_CV.pdf.
  • Publication records live in the publications collection; homepage selections use featured: true.
  • Presentations remain available as a secondary/footer destination, with legacy /talks/ routes redirected to /presentations/.
  • Teaching & Mentoring is a primary-navigation page backed by _teaching/index.md.
  • Consulting is no longer a standalone navigation tab; consulting and technical assistance work now lives inside the projects collection.
  • Research, news, and personal currently use single landing files with front matter arrays instead of one-file-per-item. This keeps the nav-to-folder mapping clean without generating unwanted extra pages.

Current Progress

Completed in the current structure pass:

  • Moved nav-owned section content into matching folders
  • Added folder-level index.md files for all top-level nav sections except Home and CV
  • Removed redundant _pages/ duplicates for nav sections
  • Removed the replacement _data/*.yml files that had become an extra maintenance surface
  • Updated the homepage to read featured research and publication content from the new folder-backed sources
  • Merged consulting into projects and removed consulting from the main navigation

Known Follow-Ups

  • The active served CV remains the April 1, 2026 version until a newer job-market CV is added.
  • No Research Résumé is currently present, so the site exposes only the Academic CV.
  • MultimodalVA has no verified public repository or documentation URL; keep the private-repository status until a public release exists.
  • Working-paper statuses and links should be updated only from an authoritative CV or manuscript record.

Safe Next Steps

If we continue improving the site, these are good next tasks:

  1. Replace files/Yue_Chu_CV.pdf when the next dated job-market CV is ready.
  2. Convert /cv/ into a two-document landing page if a Research Résumé is added.
  3. Add verified repository or documentation links when MultimodalVA or RDA packages become public.
  4. Refresh working-paper status labels as manuscripts move through review.