Appearance

1. Create and run ​

Create the project ​

bash
pnpm create @anja.codes/vitakit lena-berger
bash
npm create @anja.codes/vitakit lena-berger

The creator asks a few questions — your name, position, affiliation, email — and where the site will be published. Lena answers:

Your name: (Your Name) Lena Berger
Your position: (Postdoctoral Researcher)
Affiliation: (Department of Mathematics, University of Graz)
Email: (you@example.org) lena.berger@uni-graz.at

For the deployment target, choose decide later if you are not sure: you can add a workflow at any time, and chapter 8 helps you choose. Type ? at that question for a comparison of the options.

Then install and start the development server:

bash
cd lena-berger
pnpm install
pnpm dev
bash
cd lena-berger
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000. That is a complete site, with example data: a home page, a research page, publications and a CV. Leave the server running — every change you save from now on appears in the browser right away.

What was created ​

lena-berger/
  content/              your data — this is where you will spend most time
    profile.yml           name, affiliation, links, menu
    education.yml         one file per CV section
    employment.yml
    teaching.yml
    talks.yml
    supervision.yml
    publications.bib      your publications
    publication-lists.yml which of them are shown where
    pages/                the text of the website's pages
  app/                  the website: pages, layout, design
  cv-tex/               the PDF: cv.tex, its settings and styling
  public/               images and files served as they are
  package.json          the commands: dev, pdf, check

It is a git repository waiting to happen: run git init and commit, so every step from here can be undone. Keep the repository private — it will hold things your website does not show (see privacy).

Ask the project ​

In a second terminal, in the same directory:

bash
pnpm vitakit status
bash
npx vitakit status
Sections                                    website   pdf
  education     3 entries                   /cv/      cv
  employment    3 entries: 2 public, 1 cv   /cv/      cv
  supervision   2 entries                   /cv/      cv
  talks         3 entries                   /cv/ /    cv
  teaching      3 entries                   /cv/      cv

Publications   content/publications.bib · 3 entries
                 all: 3 entries · /publications/, cv (pdf)
                 recent: 3 entries · /
Pages          /  /cv/  /publications/  /research/   (all in the menu)
PDF            cv-tex/cv.tex → not built yet

No problems.

This is your project at a glance: five sections, and for each, on which pages of the website it appears and in which PDF documents. talks is on the CV page (/cv/) and on the home page (/), where the three latest talks are listed. One employment entry is marked cv: it is in the PDF, but not on the website — more on that in chapter 3. The publications are shown as two lists: all on the publications page and in the PDF, recent on the home page — chapter 4 is about them.

Run pnpm vitakit on its own for the list of commands; you will meet most of them in this tutorial.

Next: make it yours.