loftusa.github.io

Personal website for Alex Loftus. Jekyll (Minimal Mistakes theme) on GitHub Pages + FastAPI chat API on Fly.io.

Build & Serve

bundle exec jekyll serve                    # Local dev server (localhost:4000)
bundle exec jekyll serve --config _config.yml,_config.dev.yml  # With dev overrides
bundle exec jekyll build                    # Static build → _site/

Chat API (experiments/)

• experiments/chat_api.py — FastAPI app, Cerebras zai-glm-4.7 model, ChromaDB RAG
• Fly.io app: llm-resume-restless-thunder-9259
• Deploy: cd experiments && fly deploy
• Endpoints: POST /chat (streaming), POST /reset, GET /logs/download
• $2 USD cost cap per conversation

Key Structure

_config.yml / _config.dev.yml   Jekyll config (prod / dev overrides)
_data/navigation.yml            Nav menu
_pages/                         Site pages (about.md = homepage)
_posts/                         Blog posts (YYYY-MM-DD-title.md)
_drafts/                        Unpublished posts
assets/js/chat.js               Chat frontend
experiments/                    Chat API, RAG, evals
red-teaming/                    Mangrove experiment (has own CLAUDE.md)

Blog Posts

• Format: _posts/YYYY-MM-DD-title.md
• MathJax: add mathjax: true to front matter
• Markdown: kramdown with GFM, rouge syntax highlighting

Config

• _config.yml — production (url: https://alex-loftus.com)
• _config.dev.yml — local overrides (url: localhost:4000, analytics off)
• _data/navigation.yml — top nav links

Package Management

• Ruby/Jekyll: bundle install / bundle exec
• Python: uv (use uv run <script>.py)
• JS: npm