RPL website — GitHub Pages

This repository hosts the Robot Perception and Learning Lab website.

• Repository: UT-Austin-RPL/rpl.github.io
• Public URL: https://ut-austin-rpl.github.io/rpl.github.io/
• Generator: Jekyll, using the existing lab site's theme and content.
• Source snapshot: UT-Austin-RPL/RPL-group-website at f1a0aba, with the locally approved HumanoidMimicGen workshop removal included.

Repository language

Use English for all repository documentation, website text, code and configuration comments, and commit messages.

Migration scope

This migration includes all of publications/ (posts, images, paper PDFs, and downloadable resources), talks/, _data/people.yml, the People page, and images/members/. It also retains the home, Research, Robots, Opportunities, and Teaching index pages, along with their styles and images.

The Media archive includes all 18 historical press records and their 10 publisher images, preserving their original URLs. It is linked from the Research page. The four course submodules, course files, UTCS deployment scripts, and local working directories are not included. Course links on the Teaching index continue to point to UTCS. No submodule initialization or cleanup commands are needed.

Original papers, slides, and member images are copied byte for byte; PDFs are neither compressed nor rewritten. Build validation limits the published site to 950,000,000 bytes to leave headroom below the GitHub Pages 1 GB limit. Exceeding this budget stops deployment; it never deletes content automatically.

Local preview

Use Ruby 3.2.4, as specified in .ruby-version, and Bundler 2.4.19:

gem install bundler -v 2.4.19
bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve

Open http://127.0.0.1:4000/rpl.github.io/ . Keep the project subpath during local preview so GitHub Pages path issues are caught early.

Build and validate:

JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build
bundle exec ruby scripts/verify_site.rb

Validation checks internal links and assets across generated pages, the publication search index, RSS, the sitemap, canonical URLs, published size, course exclusions, and every legacy Media article and image path listed in _data/legacy_media_paths.yml. It does not make bulk requests to external publication websites.

Enable GitHub Pages for the first time

1. Create the initial commit in this repository and push it to main.
2. In the GitHub repository, open Settings → Pages → Build and deployment → Source and select GitHub Actions.
3. Run Actions → Build and deploy GitHub Pages. If the first push triggered a failed run before Pages was enabled, enable Pages and rerun the workflow.
4. Confirm that the workflow succeeds and that the public home, People, Publications, and Research pages and key PDFs are accessible.

No custom domain is configured yet. Do not copy the old repository's CNAME, which contains the unrelated domain yukezhu.com. Custom GitHub Actions deployments use the domain configured in Pages settings and do not require that file.

Subsequent pushes to main automatically build, validate, and deploy the site. Pull requests only build and validate. The workflow does not connect to UTCS, require SSH keys, or fetch course submodules.

Common content updates

• Publications: publications/_posts/ and publications/images/.
• People: _data/people.yml and images/members/.
• Talks: talks/ and _pages/research.md.
• Media archive: media/_posts/, media/images/, and media/index.html.
• Images and internal links: use relative_url. For full URLs, such as canonical and RSS links, use absolute_url. Avoid hardcoding the GitHub project subpath.
• Dependencies: commit Gemfile.lock. It includes both macOS and Linux platforms so Actions installs the same dependency versions.

Publication ordering

The Publications page uses one deterministic ordering rule: calendar date descending, full title A–Z (case-insensitive) within the same day, then source path ascending to break exact ties. Time of day does not affect the order within a date.

An explicit front-matter date overrides the date in the filename. To move a paper ahead of entries dated 2026-11-09, set date: 2026-11-10, as done for EgoScale. Keep its filename and explicit permalink unchanged to preserve existing URLs. The displayed conference label comes from pub_info_date, not the sorting date.

Changing date also changes the post date used by Jekyll, including the RSS feed and search index; it is not a separate highlight flag.

After building, run bundle exec ruby scripts/test_publication_sort.rb to check tie-breaking, shuffled inputs, and the order of all entries in the generated Publications page. The Pages workflow runs this check before deployment.

UTCS redirects while courses remain on UTCS

Redirects are configured in the UTCS web root, not by GitHub Pages. Apache .htaccess support has been verified with an isolated test. See docs/utcs-forwarding/ for the configuration and operating instructions. Publish and verify the GitHub-hosted archives before enabling redirects.

Do not redirect the entire old site unconditionally. The following content remains on UTCS during this phase and must be excluded first:

• /cs343_spring2021/
• /cs343_spring2022/
• /cs343_spring2023/
• /cs343h_fall2024/

All other website content redirects to GitHub, including Media, talks, images, and styles. The only technical exceptions are the retiring root service worker (/sw.js) and HTTPS certificate challenges (/.well-known/acme-challenge/). Query parameters are preserved. Keep UTCS hosting, DNS, and HTTPS active for courses and redirects.

The 47 historical pagination URLs (/page2/ through /page48/) contained exactly the same main content as the homepage; redirect them to the new homepage. Redirect the obsolete /fb-instant-articles.xml feed to /feed.xml, and the /talks/ directory entry to the Research page, where the talks are listed.

Use https://ut-austin-rpl.github.io/rpl.github.io/<original-path> as the temporary destination. A 302 redirect is appropriate until the custom domain is finalized. Once the final domain is stable, update redirects to point directly to it.

Historical PDF filenames need explicit mappings that take precedence over general directory redirects:

• 2026_06_03_building_generalist_humanoid_robots.pdf → building_generalist_humanoid_robots.pdf
• 2025_10_31_towards_generalist_humanoid_robots.pdf → towards_generalist_humanoid_robots.pdf
• 2024_11_04_data_pyramid_and_data_flywheel_for_robotic_foundation_models.pdf → data_pyramid_and_data_flywheel_for_robotic_foundation_models.pdf

Configure these PDF mappings as HTTP redirects on the old server. GitHub Pages does not execute Apache .htaccess files.

After forwarding is enabled, update the main website only through this GitHub repository. Do not run the old whole-site UTCS deployment scripts: they could overwrite the retiring service worker. Course deployments should target only their respective course directories.

Add a custom domain later

Once the domain is chosen, add it in GitHub Pages settings and configure DNS and HTTPS. Then update these two fields in _config.yml:

url: "https://your-new-domain.example"
baseurl: ""

Rebuild, validate, and deploy. Update UTCS redirects to point directly to the new domain while preserving course-path exclusions. Course links still depend on UTCS hosting until a separate course migration is completed.