Meta Notes is Junto Studio's blog for independent learners.

It runs on Jekyll, uses Github Pages for hosting, and is a fork of of the Pyxill theme.

The theme is pretty minimal, but leverages large type and drastic contrast to make a statement, on all devices.

• Getting Started with Jekyll
• Contributing a new post

If you're completely new to Jekyll, I recommend checking out the documentation at http://jekyllrb.com or there's a tutorial by Smashing Magazine.

If you don't have Jekyll already installed, you will need to go ahead and do that.

$ gem install jekyll

It's important to also check your version of Jekyll since this project uses Native Sass which is only supported by 2.0+.

$ jekyll -v
# This should be jekyll 2.0.0 or later

1. Clone the repo so you've got the code locally.

• Switch to the gh-pages branch.
• Run the server, as explained below.

Then, start the Jekyll Server. I always like to give the --watch option so it updates the generated HTML when I make changes.

$ jekyll serve --watch

Now you can navigate to localhost:4000 in your browser to see the site.

Github pages automatically pushes live the content of the gh-pages branch.

We're keeping the master branch up-to-date with Pixyll's master branch. This way, when they push new features, we can pull them into our master branch and rebase the gh-pages branch on top of it.

1. Make sure you're on the gh-pages branch.
2. Git pull to get the latest changes
3. Create a new branch with your initials (git checkout -b mh-my-awesome-post)
4. Create a new file in the \_posts/ folder. It should have the format 2015-02-26-my-awesome-post.md
5. Add the following at the top of your post

---
layout:     post
title:      My Awesome Post
date:       2015-04-27 09:41:29
summary:    Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away...
categories: code learning education culture
author:     stefy max alejo isa
—--

1. Write your post in your favorite editor.

• Lines should be sub-80 characters.

1. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'add awesome post')
2. Push to Github (git push origin my-new-post, or git push for short)
3. Create new pull request.
4. Make sure that the PR got posted in #metanotes in Slack.
5. Wait at least one day for others to give you feedback.
6. Improve your post and implement feedback.
7. Merge pull request.
8. Check the live post for formatting errors.

• The headline consists of 6 to 12 words, where the first and last 3 have the biggest impact. It has fewer than 55 characters.
• Hook your readers with storytelling. Start your blog post with a personal anecdote or moment of transparency.
• Subheads, subheads, subheads. Use subheads to make your post scannable. Also use lists, blockquotes, short paragraphs, and visuals.
• Aim for 1500 words.
• Have clear CTAs: Tweet this. Go here.
• Use Hemingway

For a deeper read, check the Perfect blog post research data by Buffer.