Automated Jekyll Archives for GitHub Pages

Creating archives in Jekyll is possible with the jekyll-archives plugin. However, this plugin is not supported by GitHub pages.

• Blog Configuration
  • Create a collection
  • Add required folders and files
    • Test the settings
  • Create 3 layouts in the _layouts folder
• Add an action to your blog’s repository
  • Action Variables
  • Triggering the action manually
• The Result
  • For Categories
  • For Tags
  • For Years
• See it in action
• GitHub

So, how can we have archive feature in our amazing blogs.

We have created a solution that can help you create archives for your blogs hosted in GitHub pages using Jekyll automatically. So, let us begin.

Blog Configuration

Create a collection

• Open your blog’s _config.yml file.
• Create a collection by adding the following code to the _config.yml file.

# Archives
collections:
  archives:
    output: true
    permalink: /archives/:path/

Add required folders and files

• Create a folder _archives in your blog’s root folder.

• Create a text file archivedata.txt with the below code.

---
---
{
"categories": [
    {%- for category in site.categories -%}
    "{{ category[0]}}"{% unless forloop.last %},{% endunless %}
    {%- endfor -%}
],
"tags": [
    {%- for tag in site.tags -%}
    "{{ tag[0] }}"{% unless forloop.last %},{% endunless %}
    {%- endfor -%}
],
"years": [
    {%- for post in site.posts -%}
    "{{ post.date | date: "%Y" }}"{% unless forloop.last %},{% endunless %}
    {%- endfor -%}
]
}

Test the settings

• Build your site and navigate to the archive data of your site. (yoursite.com/archives/archivedata)
• If the above steps were followed correctly, you should see a json structure like the one below.

{
    "categories": [
        "Software Testing",
        "Excel",
        "Blogging",
        "Programming",
        "Quiz",
        "Photography",
        "RPA"
    ],
    "tags": [
        "Automation Testing",
        "UFT",
        "QTP",
        "Excel VBA"
    ],
    "years": [
        "2020",
        "2020",
        "2019",
        "2018",
        "2017"
    ]
}

File was formatted for readability. This will appear minified on your site.

Create 3 layouts in the _layouts folder

• Open your blog’s _layouts folder.
• Create the following files.
  • archive-categories.html
  • archive-tags.html
  • archive-years.html

Sample layouts and files are present in the folder blog-files of this repository in GitHub. If you are using it, make sure to include a file from _includes folder too. Make sure you add stylesheets based on your blog’s look and feel.

Add an action to your blog’s repository

• Navigate to your blog’s repository.
• Create a folder named .github and create a folder workflows inside it if not already present.
• Create a new file named add_archives.yml in the workflows folder. Name of the file is not important. You can name it whatever you want. Path to the file should be .github/workflows/add_archives.yml
• Add the following code inside the file.

name: Generate Jekyll Archives
# description: Generate categories, tags and years archive files.
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  push:
    paths:
      - "_posts/**"

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2

      - name: Generate Jekyll Archives
        uses: kannansuresh/jekyll-blog-archive-workflow@master
        with:
          archive_url: "https://aneejian.com/archives/archivedata"
          archive_folder_path: "_archives"

      - name: setup git config
        run: |
          git config user.name "GitHub Actions Bot"
          git config user.email "<>"

      - name: commit
        run: |
          git add --all
          git commit -m "Created and updated archive files." || echo "No changes to commit."
          git push origin master || echo "No changes to push."

Action Variables

In the code above, make sure to change the variable archive_url to your site’s archive data URL.

By default, the code pushes changes to master branch. Change the code if you want the changes to be pushed to a different branch.

The action is set to run every time a commit happens in your _posts folder.

Triggering the action manually

• Navigate to Actions tab of your repository.
• Select Generate Jekyll Archives.
• Select Run workflow option and run it.
• Wait for the run to complete.
• After successful run, navigate to _archives folder and you will see the archive files generated.

The Result

Congratulations, you have setup an automated archive for your blog. To view the results, navigate to the following URLs. Replace the archive name and site URL.

In your repository, the _archives folder will look similar to the below image. Of course, it will have your category names, tag name and years you have posted.

For Categories

yoursite.com/category/category_name

For Tags

yoursite.com/tag/tag_name

For Years

yoursite.com/year/2020

See it in action

I have implemented this on this website.

See the below URLs.

• https://aneejian.com/category/rpa
• https://aneejian.com/tag/jekyll
• https://aneejian.com/year/2020

GitHub

   View repository on GitHub

   View action on GitHub Marketplace