docs/content/pages/setting-up-a-github-pages-site-with-jekyll/testing-your-github-pages-site-locally-with-jekyll.md

title	intro	redirect_from	product	versions	topics	shortTitle
Testing your GitHub Pages site locally with Jekyll	You can build your {% data variables.product.prodname_pages %} site locally to preview and test changes to your site.	/articles/setting-up-your-pages-site-locally-with-jekyll /articles/setting-up-your-github-pages-site-locally-with-jekyll /articles/testing-your-github-pages-site-locally-with-jekyll /github/working-with-github-pages/testing-your-github-pages-site-locally-with-jekyll	{% data reusables.gated-features.pages %}	fpt ghes ghec * * *	Pages	Test site locally with Jekyll

Anyone with read permissions for a repository can test a {% data variables.product.prodname_pages %} site locally.

Prerequisites

Before you can use Jekyll to test a site, you must:

• Install Jekyll.
• Create a Jekyll site. For more information, see "AUTOTITLE."

{% data reusables.pages.recommend-bundler %}

{% data reusables.pages.jekyll-install-troubleshooting %}

Building your site locally

{% data reusables.command_line.open_the_multi_os_terminal %} {% data reusables.pages.navigate-publishing-source %}

1. Run bundle install.

2. Run your Jekyll site locally.

   $ bundle exec jekyll serve
   > Configuration file: /Users/octocat/my-site/_config.yml
   >            Source: /Users/octocat/my-site
   >       Destination: /Users/octocat/my-site/_site
   > Incremental build: disabled. Enable with --incremental
   >      Generating...
   >                    done in 0.309 seconds.
   > Auto-regeneration: enabled for '/Users/octocat/my-site'
   > Configuration file: /Users/octocat/my-site/_config.yml
   >    Server address: http://127.0.0.1:4000/
   >  Server running... press ctrl-c to stop.
   

   [!NOTE]

   • If you've installed Ruby 3.0 or later (which you may have if you installed the default version via Homebrew), you might get an error at this step. That's because these versions of Ruby no longer come with webrick installed.

     To fix the error, try running bundle add webrick, then re-running bundle exec jekyll serve.

   • If your _config.yml file's baseurl field contains your GitHub repository's link, you can use the following command when building locally to ignore that value and serve the site on localhost:4000/:

     bundle exec jekyll serve --baseurl=""
     

3. To preview your site, in your web browser, navigate to http://localhost:4000.

Updating the {% data variables.product.prodname_pages %} gem

Jekyll is an active open source project that is updated frequently. If the github-pages gem on your computer is out of date with the github-pages gem on the {% data variables.product.prodname_pages %} server, your site may look different when built locally than when published on {% data variables.product.product_name %}. To avoid this, regularly update the github-pages gem on your computer.

{% data reusables.command_line.open_the_multi_os_terminal %}

1. Update the github-pages gem.
   • If you installed Bundler, run bundle update github-pages.
   • If you don't have Bundler installed, run gem update github-pages.

Further reading

• {% data variables.product.prodname_pages %} in the Jekyll documentation