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Configuration Options

The tables below list the available settings for Jekyll, and the various options (specified in the configuration file) and flags (specified on the command-line) that control them.

Global Configuration

Setting	Options and Flags
Site source Change the directory where Jekyll will read files	source: DIR -s, --source DIR
Site destination Change the directory where Jekyll will write files	destination: DIR -d, --destination DIR
Safe Disable non-whitelisted plugins, caching to disk, and ignore symbolic links.	safe: BOOL --safe
Disable disk cache 4.1.0 Disable caching of content to disk in order to skip creating a .jekyll-cache or similar directory at the source to avoid interference with virtual environments and third-party directory watchers. Caching to disk is always disabled in safe mode.	disable_disk_cache: BOOL --disable-disk-cache
Ignore theme configuration 4.1.0 Jekyll 4.0 started allowing themes to bundle a _config.yml to simplify theme-onboarding for new users. In the unfortunate situation that importing a bundled theme configuration messes up the merged site-configuration, the user can configure Jekyll to not import the theme-config entirely.	ignore_theme_config: BOOL
Exclude Exclude directories and/or files from the conversion. These exclusions are relative to the site’s source directory and cannot be outside the source directory. In Jekyll 3, the exclude configuration option replaces the default exclusion list. In Jekyll 4, user-provided entries get added to the default exclusion list instead and the include option can be used to override the default exclusion list entries. The default exclusions are found in _config.yml as created by jekyll new: * .sass-cache/ * .jekyll-cache/ * gemfiles/ * Gemfile * Gemfile.lock * node_modules/ * vendor/bundle/ * vendor/cache/ * vendor/gems/ * vendor/ruby/	exclude: [DIR, FILE, ...]
Include Force inclusion of directories and/or files in the conversion. .htaccess is a good example since dotfiles are excluded by default. With Jekyll 4, the include configuration option entries override the exclude option entries.	include: [DIR, FILE, ...]
Keep files When clobbering the site destination, keep the selected files. Useful for files that are not generated by jekyll; e.g. files or assets that are generated by your build tool. The paths are relative to the destination.	keep_files: [DIR, FILE, ...]
Time zone Set the time zone for site generation. This sets the TZ environment variable, which Ruby uses to handle time and date creation and manipulation. Any entry from the IANA Time Zone Database is valid, e.g. America/New_York. A list of all available values can be found here. When serving on a local machine, the default time zone is set by your operating system. But when served on a remote host/server, the default time zone depends on the server’s setting or location.	timezone: TIMEZONE
Encoding Set the encoding of files by name (only available for Ruby 1.9 or later). The default value is utf-8 starting in 2.0.0, and nil before 2.0.0, which will yield the Ruby default of ASCII-8BIT. Available encodings can be shown by the command ruby -e 'puts Encoding::list.join("\n")'.	encoding: ENCODING
Defaults Set defaults for front matter variables.	see below

Destination folders are cleaned on site builds

The contents of <destination> are automatically cleaned, by default, when the site is built. Files or folders that are not created by your site will be removed. Some files could be retained by specifying them within the <keep_files> configuration directive.

Do not use an important location for <destination>; instead, use it as a staging area and copy files from there to your web server.

Build Command Options

Setting	Options and Flags
Regeneration Enable auto-regeneration of the site when files are modified.	-w, --[no-]watch
Configuration Specify config files instead of using _config.yml automatically. Settings in later files override settings in earlier files.	--config FILE1[,FILE2,...]
Plugins Specify plugin directories instead of using _plugins/ automatically.	plugins_dir: [ DIR1,... ] -p, --plugins DIR1[,DIR2,...]
Layouts Specify layout directory instead of using _layouts/ automatically.	layouts_dir: DIR --layouts DIR
Drafts Process and render draft posts.	show_drafts: BOOL -D, --drafts
Environment Use a specific environment value in the build.	JEKYLL_ENV=production
Future Publish posts or collection documents with a future date.	future: BOOL --future
Unpublished Render posts that were marked as unpublished.	unpublished: BOOL --unpublished
LSI Produce an index for related posts. Requires the classifier-reborn plugin.	lsi: BOOL --lsi
Limit posts Limit the number of posts to parse and publish.	limit_posts: NUM --limit_posts NUM
Force polling Force watch to use polling.	force_polling: BOOL --force_polling
Verbose output Print verbose output.	verbose: BOOL -V, --verbose
Silence output Silence the normal output from Jekyll during a build.	quiet: BOOL -q, --quiet
Log level Specify a log level among debug, info, warn, or error.	JEKYLL_LOG_LEVEL=info
Incremental build Enable the experimental incremental build feature. Incremental build only re-builds posts and pages that have changed, resulting in significant performance improvements for large sites, but may also break site generation in certain cases.	incremental: BOOL -I, --incremental
Disable bundle require Disables the need to require gems in :jekyll\_plugins Gemfile	JEKYLL_NO_BUNDLER_REQUIRE=true
Liquid profiler Generate a Liquid rendering profile to help you identify performance bottlenecks.	profile: BOOL --profile
Strict front matter Cause a build to fail if there is a YAML syntax error in a page’s front matter.	strict_front_matter: BOOL --strict_front_matter
Base URL Serve the website from the given base URL.	baseurl: URL -b, --baseurl URL
Trace Show the full backtrace when an error occurs.	-t, --trace

Serve Command Options

In addition to the options below, the serve sub-command can accept any of the options for the build sub-command, which are then applied to the site build which occurs right before your site is served.

Setting	Options and Flags
Local server port Listen on the given port. The default is 4000.	port: PORT -P, --port PORT
Local server hostname Listen at the given hostname. The default is localhost.	host: HOSTNAME -H, --host HOSTNAME
Live reload Reload a page automatically on the browser when its content is edited.	livereload: BOOL -l, --livereload
Live reload ignore File glob patterns for LiveReload to ignore.	livereload_ignore: [ GLOB1,... ] --livereload-ignore GLOB1[,GLOB2,...]
Live reload min/max delay Minimum/Maximum delay before automatically reloading page.	livereload_min_delay: SECONDS livereload_max_delay: SECONDS --livereload-min-delay SECONDS --livereload-max-delay SECONDS
Live reload port Port for LiveReload to listen on.	--livereload-port PORT
Open URL Open the site’s URL in the browser.	open_url: BOOL -o, --open-url
Detach Detach the server from the terminal.	detach: BOOL -B, --detach
Skips the initial site build Skips the initial site build which occurs before the server is started.	skip_initial_build: BOOL --skip-initial-build
Show directory listing Show a directory listing instead of loading your index file.	show_dir_listing: BOOL --show-dir-listing
X.509 (SSL) private key SSL Private Key, stored or symlinked in the site source.	--ssl-key
X.509 (SSL) certificate SSL Public certificate, stored or symlinked in the site source.	--ssl-cert

Do not use tabs in configuration files

This will either lead to parsing errors, or Jekyll will revert to the default settings. Use spaces instead.