csinva.github.io: A Jekyll Site That Doubles as a Machine Learning Notebook

What the repository actually contains

This is not a library. It is the source for csinva.io, a personal site that publishes slides, paper notes, class notes and blog posts on machine learning, statistics and AI. The README states the author has been taking and improving notes since a PhD at UC Berkeley and now works on interpretable machine learning at Microsoft Research. The topics list on the repository includes computational neuroscience, deep learning, statistics and Jekyll themes, which matches the folder layout rather than describing a single product. The primary language is HTML because the output of the build is HTML; the inputs are markdown. If you arrive expecting an installable package with an API, you have the wrong repository. The thing you can reuse is the structure: a pres folder for presentations, a _notes folder for course and research notes, a _blog folder for posts, and assets/img for images. The README links to specific artefacts such as the Berkeley CS 189 ML slides, the CS 188 AI slides, an interpretability cheat sheet in SVG, and research overviews on causal inference, transfer learning and uncertainty. Those links are the best evidence of what the layout is meant to hold.

The problem it solves for a note-taking researcher

The recurring problem for someone who writes notes for years is that notes, slides and posts end up in three different tools with three different export paths. A PDF slide deck cannot be diffed. A Google Doc cannot be linked from a cheat sheet. This repository puts all of it in one markdown tree and one build. The README describes the slides as being in markdown and "easily editable / exportable", built with reveal-md. That single sentence is the design goal: keep the source plain so it survives tool changes, and let the build produce the web version. The audience is narrow. It is a researcher, instructor or graduate student who already writes in markdown and is comfortable with a static site generator. It is not aimed at a team that needs a CMS, review workflows or role-based publishing. The README's closing line, "Feel free to use openly", tells you the author treats this as a reference to copy from rather than a framework to depend on.

How the build works: Jekyll, GitHub Pages and reveal-md

The mechanism is a static site generator with a separate pipeline for slides. The README lists the stack: Jekyll, GitHub Pages, the timeline Jekyll theme, particles.js and Jupyter Book. Jekyll reads the markdown files, applies the theme layouts, and writes HTML. GitHub Pages serves the result, which is why the default branch is master and the homepage is csinva.io. The slides take a different route. The pres folder holds markdown that reveal-md turns into a reveal.js deck, and the README points to a blog post explaining the setup. That means two build paths in one repository: Jekyll for notes and posts, reveal-md for presentations. Jupyter Book appears in the stack list, which suggests some content is rendered through it, though the README does not say which folders. The cheat sheets are a third case: the interpretability cheat sheet is referenced as an SVG file under _notes/cheat_sheets, so it is a static asset rather than generated content. Three content types, three rendering paths, one repository.

Getting it running from the material provided

The README does not include a setup section, so the commands below follow from the stated stack rather than from a documented procedure. You would clone the repository, then install the Ruby dependencies Jekyll needs and serve the site locally with bundle exec jekyll serve, which is the standard Jekyll invocation. For the slides you would need Node and the reveal-md package, then run it against a file in pres, for example npx reveal-md pres/189/index.md. The README does not name the exact entry file, so check the pres folder for the actual markdown filenames before running anything. Configuration lives in _config.yml, the Jekyll convention, and the theme is the timeline theme linked from the README at kirbyt.github.io/timeline-jekyll-theme. The dependency list is in the Gemfile. None of these keys are quoted in the README, so treat the file contents as the source of truth. One practical point: because the site is published through GitHub Pages, the deployed build may not match a local build if the Pages environment uses different gem versions. Verify locally before assuming a change will render the same way online.

Where the approach strains

The main limitation is that this is a personal site, not a maintained project. The repository shows no retrieved releases, so there is no version to pin and no changelog to read before upgrading. If you fork it and a Jekyll or theme update changes layout behaviour, you resolve that yourself. The theme is a third-party Jekyll theme hosted on GitHub Pages, which means its maintenance is outside this repository. The dependency surface is also mixed: Ruby for Jekyll, Node for reveal-md, plus particles.js and Jupyter Book. Each has its own update cycle. There is a second, quieter issue. The content is the author's notes on interpretable machine learning, causal inference, computational neuroscience and related areas. Copying the structure is reasonable; copying the content is a different decision, and the README's "Feel free to use openly" is an invitation rather than a licence statement for the notes themselves. The repository is MIT licensed, which covers the code, but the notes are the author's writing and the README does not spell out terms for them. If you plan to republish note text, that is a question the repository does not answer.

Alternatives and how they differ

The obvious alternative is a documentation framework such as MkDocs with Material for MkDocs, or Docusaurus. The difference is in what the tool assumes you are building. Jekyll with a blog theme assumes a chronological site with posts and pages, which is why the timeline theme and the _blog folder fit. MkDocs assumes a documentation tree with a navigation sidebar generated from a config file, which suits a structured course site better than a personal blog. Docusaurus assumes a versioned documentation product, with versioned docs and a release process, which is the opposite of what this repository does. A second alternative is Quarto or Jupyter Book alone, since Jupyter Book already appears in this stack. That path treats notebooks and markdown as first-class and produces a book-shaped site, but it does not give you the reveal-md slide pipeline without extra work. The real distinction is whether you want a site that looks like a person's notebook or a site that looks like a product's documentation. This repository is firmly the first.

Licence, maintenance and what a fork costs you

The repository is MIT licensed. That permits reuse and modification with the licence and copyright notice retained, but it is a permissive software licence and this is not legal advice; if you plan to redistribute, read the licence text and check the licences of the theme, particles.js, reveal-md and Jupyter Book separately, because those are dependencies you would be adding to your own build. Maintenance cost is the more concrete concern. With no releases, every upgrade is a manual diff against the upstream repository. The content tree is large and the README lists many note areas, so a fork inherits a lot of markdown you may not want. The practical move is to copy the folder structure and the two build pipelines rather than the content, then replace the assets in assets/img with your own, since the README references screenshots and a presentation demo GIF that belong to this site.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt this layout if you are an individual researcher or instructor who wants markdown notes, reveal-md slides and cheat sheets in one repository published through GitHub Pages, and you are willing to own the Jekyll build yourself. Do not adopt it if you need tagged releases, a documented upgrade path or a theme you can hand to a non-technical editor. Before copying anything, check the _config.yml and Gemfile in the repository for the Jekyll and theme versions actually pinned, confirm which assets in assets/img you would have to replace, and read the MIT licence text for the theme and plugin dependencies you add on top.

Official sources

1. csinva/csinva.github.io on GitHub
2. Issues
3. License: MIT
4. Project website
5. README