Guocong Zhai

Guocong Zhai

Causal decision-making for safe systems

Academic Homepage Revival Implementation Plan

Academic Homepage Revival Implementation Plan

For agentic workers: REQUIRED SUB-SKILL: Use superpowers:subagent-driven-development (recommended) or superpowers:executing-plans to implement this plan task-by-task. Steps use checkbox (- [ ]) syntax for tracking.

Goal: Finish, clean up, and deploy the existing AcademicPages site in /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io to GitHub Pages at https://gzhai001.github.io.

Architecture: AcademicPages (Jekyll) static site, already ~95% written. Remaining work: add a News section to the homepage, gitignore local build dirs, delete template placeholder assets, recreate the GitHub repo, push, and verify the live site. GitHub Pages builds username.github.io repos automatically with the github-pages gem.

Tech Stack: Jekyll (AcademicPages template), Markdown, git over HTTPS using the existing macOS keychain GitHub credential (account gzhai001), GitHub REST API via curl, Kimi browser extension for visual verification.

Working directory for all tasks: /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io

Spec: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-09-27-academic-homepage-design.md

Task 1: Add News section to homepage

Files:

  • Modify: /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io/_pages/about.md (insert after line 17, before the Education heading)

  • Step 1: Insert the News section

Edit _pages/about.md: after the line Please feel free to contact me at [gzhai@swjtu.edu.cn](mailto:gzhai@swjtu.edu.cn). and before Education, insert:


News
======
* **2026** — Our paper "Causal inference in conjoint analysis: Logit models vs. potential outcomes" is published in the *Journal of Choice Modelling*.
* **2026** — I was awarded the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Young Scientists Fund as Principal Investigator.
* **2025** — I joined the School of Transportation and Logistics at Southwest Jiaotong University as an Assistant Professor.
* **2025** — I am serving as Guest Editor for the *Transportation Research Part D* special issue on "AI-Driven Behavioral Analytics for Sustainable Shared Mobility".
  • Step 2: Verify the edit

Run: grep -n "News" /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io/_pages/about.md Expected: one match line for the News heading; file still ends with the Contact section.

  • Step 3: Commit
cd /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io
git add _pages/about.md
git commit -m "Add News section to homepage"

Task 2: Ignore local build artifacts

Files:

  • Modify: /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io/.gitignore

  • Step 1: Append entries

The file currently ends with node_modules / package-lock.json (no trailing newline). Append:

.bundle/
vendor/
.jekyll-cache/
  • Step 2: Verify

Run: cd /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io && git status --short | head Expected: .bundle/ and vendor/ no longer appear as untracked; only intended modified files listed.

  • Step 3: Commit
cd /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io
git add .gitignore
git commit -m "Ignore bundler and jekyll cache directories"

Task 3: Delete AcademicPages template placeholder assets

Files (all deletions):

  • /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io/files/paper1.pdf, paper2.pdf, paper3.pdf, slides1.pdf, slides2.pdf, slides3.pdf
  • /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io/_drafts/post-draft.md
  • /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io/images/: 3953273590_704e3899d5_m.jpg, 500x300.png, bio-photo.jpg, bio-photo-2.jpg, editing-talk.png, foo-bar-identity-th.jpg, foo-bar-identity.jpg, homepage.png, image-alignment-1200x4002.jpg, image-alignment-150x150.jpg, image-alignment-300x200.jpg, image-alignment-580x300.jpg, paragraph-indent.png, paragraph-no-indent.png, site-logo.png

Keep (referenced by template head/favicons or config): images/profile.png (avatar, referenced in _config.yml line 24), favicon.ico, manifest.json, browserconfig.xml, safari-pinned-tab.svg, mstile-*.png.

  • Step 1: Confirm none of the deletion targets are referenced

Run:

cd /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io
grep -rn "bio-photo\|site-logo\|foo-bar\|image-alignment\|paragraph-indent\|paragraph-no-indent\|editing-talk\|homepage.png\|500x300\|3953273590\|paper1\|slides1\|post-draft" _config.yml _data _includes _layouts _pages 2>/dev/null

Expected: no output. If anything matches, remove that file from the deletion list.

  • Step 2: Delete the files
cd /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io
git rm -q files/paper1.pdf files/paper2.pdf files/paper3.pdf files/slides1.pdf files/slides2.pdf files/slides3.pdf _drafts/post-draft.md
git rm -q images/3953273590_704e3899d5_m.jpg images/500x300.png images/bio-photo.jpg images/bio-photo-2.jpg images/editing-talk.png images/foo-bar-identity-th.jpg images/foo-bar-identity.jpg images/homepage.png images/image-alignment-1200x4002.jpg images/image-alignment-150x150.jpg images/image-alignment-300x200.jpg images/image-alignment-580x300.jpg images/paragraph-indent.png images/paragraph-no-indent.png images/site-logo.png
  • Step 3: Commit
cd /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io
git commit -q -m "Remove AcademicPages template placeholder assets"

Task 4: Create the GitHub repo and push

Files: none (git/GitHub operations only)

  • Step 1: Create the public repo via the GitHub API

The macOS keychain already holds a GitHub HTTPS credential for gzhai001. Retrieve it into a shell variable without printing it, and create the repo:

TOKEN=$(printf 'protocol=https\nhost=github.com\n' | git credential-osxkeychain get | awk -F= '/^password=/{print $2}')
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
  -X POST https://api.github.com/user/repos \
  -d '{"name":"gzhai001.github.io","description":"Personal academic homepage of Guocong Zhai","private":false,"has_issues":false,"has_wiki":false}' \
  | python3 -c "import json,sys; d=json.load(sys.stdin); print(d.get('full_name') or d)"

Expected output: gzhai001/gzhai001.github.io

If the output is an error JSON with Resource not accessible / 403 (token lacks repo scope) or name already exists, STOP and ask the user: either create the public repo gzhai001.github.io manually at https://github.com/new, or install GitHub CLI (brew install gh && gh auth login). Do not retry with the same token.

  • Step 2: Set repo-local credential helper and push
cd /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io
git config credential.helper osxkeychain
git branch -M main
git push -u origin main

Expected: objects pushed, branch 'main' set up to track 'origin/main'. The remote origin already points to https://github.com/gzhai001/gzhai001.github.io.git — verify with git remote -v first; if missing, run git remote add origin https://github.com/gzhai001/gzhai001.github.io.git.

  • Step 3: Confirm Pages is building
TOKEN=$(printf 'protocol=https\nhost=github.com\n' | git credential-osxkeychain get | awk -F= '/^password=/{print $2}')
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" https://api.github.com/repos/gzhai001/gzhai001.github.io/pages \
  | python3 -c "import json,sys; d=json.load(sys.stdin); print(d.get('status'), d.get('html_url'))"

Expected: building https://gzhai001.github.io/ or built https://gzhai001.github.io/. If the response is 404 (Pages not auto-enabled), enable it:

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -X POST https://api.github.com/repos/gzhai001/gzhai001.github.io/pages -d '{"source":{"branch":"main","path":"/"}}'

If the token lacks permission, tell the user to enable it at repo Settings → Pages (source: main, root).

Task 5: Verify the live site

Files: none (verification only)

  • Step 1: Wait for the build, then confirm HTTP 200
for i in $(seq 1 20); do code=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" https://gzhai001.github.io/); echo "$code"; [ "$code" = "200" ] && break; sleep 15; done

Expected: final output 200 (first builds typically take 1–5 minutes).

  • Step 2: Visual check via the Kimi browser extension

Navigate the user’s browser (daemon at http://127.0.0.1:10086, session homepage-verify, group_title “主页上线检查”) to https://gzhai001.github.io/, take a screenshot, and read it. Confirm: sidebar shows avatar photo, name, bio, email/Scholar/GitHub links; main column shows bio, News, Education, Prospective Students, Contact.

  • Step 3: Check subpages and links

In the same browser session, open in new tabs and screenshot each:

  • https://gzhai001.github.io/publications/ — two themes + working papers render
  • https://gzhai001.github.io/research/ — themes + funding render

  • https://gzhai001.github.io/cv/ — education through skills render Confirm the Google Scholar link points to https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YJHjwT8AAAAJ&hl=en and GitHub link to https://github.com/gzhai001.

  • Step 4: Confirm placeholders are gone

Run: curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://gzhai001.github.io/files/paper1.pdf Expected: 404.

  • Step 5: Report to user

Tell the user the site is live, summarize what each page contains, and note how to update it (edit _pages/*.md, push). Leave the browser tabs open unless the user asks to close them.

Self-Review Notes

  • Spec coverage: News section (Task 1) ✓; CV cross-check — done during planning, cv.md already complete ✓; cleanup (Task 3) ✓; gitignore for .bundle//vendor/ (Task 2) ✓; repo creation + push + Pages (Task 4) ✓; verification incl. placeholders-unreachable check (Task 5) ✓.
  • No placeholders: every content edit includes the exact Markdown; every command is literal.
  • Consistency: repo name gzhai001.github.io, branch main, paths absolute under /Users/gzhai/gzhai001.github.io throughout.