CLAUDE.md — Yuxuan Zhang’s Personal Page

Owner

Yuxuan Zhang — M.S. in CS @ UC San Diego, advised by Prof. Hao Zhang and Prof. Haojian Jin. Research focus: AI Agents (building agents + agentic RL training).

Project Overview

A personal academic website hosted on GitHub Pages at https://yuxuandexter.github.io. Built with Jekyll using the Academic Pages theme (Minimal Mistakes fork).

Design Philosophy

Clean. Simple. Elegant.

• Prefer a single-page feel — the homepage should be the main hub.
• Minimize the number of nav links; avoid clutter.
• Every section should earn its place. If it’s empty, remove it from nav.
• No unnecessary boilerplate pages (talks, teaching are disabled for now).

Target Sections (on homepage or as pages)

Tech Stack

Repository Structure

├── _config.yml            # Main Jekyll config (site metadata, author, collections)
├── _data/
│   └── navigation.yml     # Header nav links — toggle sections here
├── _pages/
│   ├── about.md           # Homepage (permalink: /)
│   ├── publications.html  # Publications archive
│   ├── portfolio.html     # Portfolio/projects archive
│   └── cv.md              # CV page (embeds PDF via iframe)
├── _publications/         # Markdown files per paper (YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md)
├── _portfolio/            # Markdown files per project (portfolio-N.md)
├── _posts/                # Blog posts (YYYY-MM-DD-title.md) — empty for now
├── _layouts/              # Liquid HTML templates
├── _includes/             # Reusable template partials
├── _sass/                 # SCSS source files
├── assets/                # Compiled CSS/JS, fonts
├── images/                # All images (profile, project screenshots, etc.)
├── files/                 # Downloadable files (resume PDF, paper PDFs)
├── deprecated/            # Archived old content — do not modify
├── Gemfile                # Ruby dependencies
└── package.json           # Node dependencies (JS build tooling)

Key Files to Edit

Content Changes (most common)

• Homepage content: _pages/about.md
• Navigation links: _data/navigation.yml (uncomment/add entries)
• Add a publication: create _publications/YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md
• Add a project: create _portfolio/portfolio-N.md
• Add a blog post: create _posts/YYYY-MM-DD-title.md
• Update CV: replace files/Yuxuan_Resume.pdf

Site-wide Settings

• Site metadata / author info: _config.yml (requires server restart)
• Styling overrides: _sass/_variables.scss (colors, fonts, sizes)
• Layout changes: _layouts/ and _includes/

Content Conventions

Publications (_publications/)

---
title: "Paper Title"
collection: publications
category: conferences
permalink: /publication/slug
date: 2025-05-21
venue: "NeurIPS '25"
paperurl: "https://arxiv.org/abs/XXXX.XXXXX"
---
Abstract or short description here.

Portfolio Projects (_portfolio/)

---
title: "Project Name"
excerpt: "One-line description"
collection: portfolio
header:
  teaser: project-screenshot.png
---
Project details in markdown.

Blog Posts (_posts/) — for future use

---
title: "Post Title"
date: 2025-01-01
tags: [tag1, tag2]
---
Post content in markdown.

Recent News (_data/news.yml)

- date: 2025-05-21
  title: "Short headline describing the news"
  icon: "fa-file-text"  # Font Awesome icon (optional)
  link: "/path/or/url"   # Internal or external link (optional)
  type: "publication"    # Types: publication, release, award, talk (optional)

Display as timeline on homepage with most recent 5-7 items. Types of news to include:

• Paper submissions and acceptances
• Project releases and GitHub milestones
• Awards and recognition
• Conference talks and presentations

Experience (_data/experience.yml)

education:
  - degree: "M.S. in Computer Science"
    institution: "UC San Diego"
    period: "2024 - Present"
    advisors:
      - name: "Prof. Hao Zhang"
        url: "https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~haozhang/"
      - name: "Prof. Haojian Jin"
        url: "https://www.haojianj.in/"
    focus: "AI Agents (building agents + agentic RL training)"

  - degree: "B.S. in Data Science"
    institution: "UC San Diego (Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute)"
    period: "2020 - 2024"
    honors: "Summa cum laude (top 2%)"

research:
  - role: "Graduate Researcher"
    lab: "HaoAI Lab"
    institution: "UC San Diego"
    period: "2024 - Present"
    focus: "AI Agents research"

Enabling the Blog

When ready to publish blog posts:

1. Create posts in _posts/ following YYYY-MM-DD-title.md naming.
2. Uncomment the Blog link in _data/navigation.yml: ```yaml
   • title: “Blog” url: /year-archive/ ```
3. The year-archive page at _pages/year-archive.html already exists.

Development

Local preview

bundle install          # first time only
jekyll serve -l -H localhost   # serves at http://localhost:4000

Docker alternative

docker build -t jekyll-site .
docker run -p 4000:4000 --rm -v $(pwd):/usr/src/app jekyll-site

JS build (rarely needed)

npm run build:js    # rebuild main.min.js

Deploy

Push to master — GitHub Pages deploys automatically.

Guidelines for Claude

When making changes to this site:

1. Keep it minimal — do not add pages, sections, or features unless explicitly asked.
2. Homepage is king — most content should live on or be accessible from _pages/about.md.
3. Respect the theme — work within Academic Pages conventions. Don’t fight the framework.
4. No dead links — if a nav item points to an empty collection, disable it in navigation.yml.
5. Images go in images/, downloadable files in files/.
6. Don’t touch deprecated/ — it’s archived content, leave it alone.
7. Config changes require restart — remind the user to restart jekyll serve after editing _config.yml.
8. Publication categories — currently only conferences is defined in _config.yml. Add new categories there if needed (e.g., workshops, preprints).
9. Frontmatter matters — every content file needs correct YAML frontmatter for Jekyll to process it.
10. Test locally before pushing — always suggest running jekyll serve to verify changes.
11. Homepage is truly the hub — All major sections appear on homepage with smooth scrolling. Detail pages exist but accessed via inline links.
12. Data files for simple content — Use _data/ for news and experience (no detail pages needed).
13. Collections for rich content — Use _publications/ and _portfolio/ for content that needs detail pages and SEO.
14. Minimal navigation — Keep header nav to 3-4 links max. Sections accessed via homepage scrolling.
15. Open-Source Projects — Conceptually refers to the _portfolio/ collection (keep technical implementation unchanged).

Future Roadmap (User’s Intent)

• Add a “Recent News” section to homepage (timeline/list of updates)
• Add “Experience” section with education and research
• Consolidate homepage to be the single main page with all key info
• Rename Portfolio to “Open-Source Projects” conceptually
• Start blog section when content is ready
• Keep nav bar lean: Publications, Projects, CV
• Potentially simplify/customize the theme for a more personal aesthetic