This post is a concise record of a live “vibecoding” session — a rapid, collaborative rebuild where I moved, cleaned, and published my research site with minimal fuss.

Goals for the session

  • Consolidate existing APSIM blog posts and research notes into one clean site.
  • Use a minimal professional theme and enable fast editing in VS Code.
  • Keep hosting free on GitHub Pages and make future updates trivial.
  • Add dedicated, easy-to-edit sections for Publications, Book Summaries, Talks, Prompt Engineering, and Side Projects.

What I actually did (& where Copilot helped)

  • Chose Jekyll + minima for GitHub Pages auto-build. Copilot provided technical guidance; I made the final decision.
  • Migrated posts from ApsimXLearn into _posts/, cleaned front matter, and standardized image paths. I reviewed; Copilot executed the bulk of the work.
  • Copied and fixed image assets scattered across the repo. Copilot automated the consolidation to /assets/images/.
  • Resolved the domain mismatch by unarchiving frank0434.github.io and pushing the rebuilt site. I directed; Copilot handled the repo management.
  • Created five new site pages (Publications, Book Summaries, Talks, Prompt Engineering, Side Projects) and wired them into navigation. Copilot drafted the templates and page structure; I edited and refined.

Key files I touched

  • _config.yml — site metadata and navigation
  • index.md, about.md — home and bio
  • _posts/* — migrated posts (cleaned and ready)
  • assets/images/* — consolidated images
  • New page files for each showcase section

Reproduce in under five minutes (practical steps)

  1. Clone the site locally:
git clone git@github.com:frank0434/frank0434.github.io.git
cd frank0434.github.io
  1. Add a post (filename matters):
_posts/YYYY-MM-DD-your-title.md
  1. Use this minimal front matter:
---
title: Short, clear title
author: Jian Liu
date: 2026-02-15
categories:
  - showcase
tags:
  - vibecoding
---
  1. Preview in VS Code (open file → Ctrl+Shift+V), then commit and push:
git add _posts/2026-02-15-your-title.md
git commit -m "Add new vibecoding post"
git push

Prompt engineering & working example

I used short, structured prompts during the session to guide Copilot through conversion and polishing tasks. Here’s the minimal prompt format that worked best:

Task: Convert a Hugo/blogdown post to Jekyll.
Input: [paste post frontmatter + content]
Rules: Keep title, author, date, categories, tags; remove blogdown-specific fields; rewrite image links to /assets/images/; keep tone conversational.
Output: Full Jekyll-ready markdown.