--- layout: docs title: Plugins prev_section: assets next_section: extras permalink: /docs/plugins/ --- Jekyll has a plugin system with hooks that allow you to create custom generated content specific to your site. You can run custom code for your site without having to modify the Jekyll source itself.
Plugins on GitHub Pages

GitHub Pages is powered by Jekyll, however all Pages sites are generated using the --safe option to disable custom plugins for security reasons. Unfortunately, this means your plugins won’t work if you’re deploying to GitHub Pages.

You can still use GitHub Pages to publish your site, but you’ll need to convert the site locally and push the generated static files to your GitHub repository instead of the Jekyll source files.

## Installing a plugin You have 2 options for installing plugins: 1. In your site source root, make a `_plugins` directory. Place your plugins here. Any file ending in `*.rb` inside this directory will be loaded before Jekyll generates your site. 2. In your `_config.yml` file, add a new array with the key `gems` and the values of the gem names of the plugins you'd like to use. An example: gems: [jekyll-test-plugin, jekyll-jsonify, jekyll-assets] # This will require each of these gems automatically.
_plugins and gems can be used simultaneously

You may use both of the aforementioned plugin options simultaneously in the same site if you so choose. Use of one does not restrict the use of the other

In general, plugins you make will fall into one of three categories: 1. Generators 2. Converters 3. Tags ## Generators You can create a generator when you need Jekyll to create additional content based on your own rules. A generator is a subclass of `Jekyll::Generator` that defines a `generate` method, which receives an instance of [`Jekyll::Site`]({{ site.repository }}/blob/master/lib/jekyll/site.rb). Generation is triggered for its side-effects, the return value of `generate` is ignored. Jekyll does not assume any particular side-effect to happen, it just runs the method. Generators run after Jekyll has made an inventory of the existing content, and before the site is generated. Pages with YAML front-matters are stored as instances of [`Jekyll::Page`]({{ site.repository }}/blob/master/lib/jekyll/page.rb) and are available via `site.pages`. Static files become instances of [`Jekyll::StaticFile`]({{ site.repository }}/blob/master/lib/jekyll/static_file.rb) and are available via `site.static_files`. See [`Jekyll::Site`]({{ site.repository }}/blob/master/lib/jekyll/site.rb) for more details. For instance, a generator can inject values computed at build time for template variables. In the following example the template `reading.html` has two variables `ongoing` and `done` that we fill in the generator: {% highlight ruby %} module Reading class Generator < Jekyll::Generator def generate(site) ongoing, done = Book.all.partition(&:ongoing?) reading = site.pages.detect {|page| page.name == 'reading.html'} reading.data['ongoing'] = ongoing reading.data['done'] = done end end end {% endhighlight %} This is a more complex generator that generates new pages: {% highlight ruby %} module Jekyll class CategoryPage < Page def initialize(site, base, dir, category) @site = site @base = base @dir = dir @name = 'index.html' self.process(@name) self.read_yaml(File.join(base, '_layouts'), 'category_index.html') self.data['category'] = category category_title_prefix = site.config['category_title_prefix'] || 'Category: ' self.data['title'] = "#{category_title_prefix}#{category}" end end class CategoryPageGenerator < Generator safe true def generate(site) if site.layouts.key? 'category_index' dir = site.config['category_dir'] || 'categories' site.categories.keys.each do |category| site.pages << CategoryPage.new(site, site.source, File.join(dir, category), category) end end end end end {% endhighlight %} In this example, our generator will create a series of files under the `categories` directory for each category, listing the posts in each category using the `category_index.html` layout. Generators are only required to implement one method:
Method Description

generate

Generates content as a side-effect.

## Converters If you have a new markup language you’d like to use with your site, you can include it by implementing your own converter. Both the Markdown and Textile markup languages are implemented using this method.
Remember your YAML front-matter

Jekyll will only convert files that have a YAML header at the top, even for converters you add using a plugin.

Below is a converter that will take all posts ending in `.upcase` and process them using the `UpcaseConverter`: {% highlight ruby %} module Jekyll class UpcaseConverter < Converter safe true priority :low def matches(ext) ext =~ /^\.upcase$/i end def output_ext(ext) ".html" end def convert(content) content.upcase end end end {% endhighlight %} Converters should implement at a minimum 3 methods:
Method Description

matches

Does the given extension match this converter’s list of acceptable extensions? Takes one argument: the file’s extension (including the dot). Must return true if it matches, false otherwise.

output_ext

The extension to be given to the output file (including the dot). Usually this will be ".html".

convert

Logic to do the content conversion. Takes one argument: the raw content of the file (without YAML front matter). Must return a String.

In our example, `UpcaseConverter#matches` checks if our filename extension is `.upcase`, and will render using the converter if it is. It will call `UpcaseConverter#convert` to process the content. In our simple converter we’re simply uppercasing the entire content string. Finally, when it saves the page, it will do so with a `.html` extension. ## Tags If you’d like to include custom liquid tags in your site, you can do so by hooking into the tagging system. Built-in examples added by Jekyll include the `highlight` and `include` tags. Below is an example of a custom liquid tag that will output the time the page was rendered: {% highlight ruby %} module Jekyll class RenderTimeTag < Liquid::Tag def initialize(tag_name, text, tokens) super @text = text end def render(context) "#{@text} #{Time.now}" end end end Liquid::Template.register_tag('render_time', Jekyll::RenderTimeTag) {% endhighlight %} At a minimum, liquid tags must implement:
Method Description

render

Outputs the content of the tag.

You must also register the custom tag with the Liquid template engine as follows: {% highlight ruby %} Liquid::Template.register_tag('render_time', Jekyll::RenderTimeTag) {% endhighlight %} In the example above, we can place the following tag anywhere in one of our pages: {% highlight ruby %} {% raw %}

{% render_time page rendered at: %}

{% endraw %} {% endhighlight %} And we would get something like this on the page: {% highlight html %}

page rendered at: Tue June 22 23:38:47 –0500 2010

{% endhighlight %} ### Liquid filters You can add your own filters to the Liquid template system much like you can add tags above. Filters are simply modules that export their methods to liquid. All methods will have to take at least one parameter which represents the input of the filter. The return value will be the output of the filter. {% highlight ruby %} module Jekyll module AssetFilter def asset_url(input) "http://www.example.com/#{input}?#{Time.now.to_i}" end end end Liquid::Template.register_filter(Jekyll::AssetFilter) {% endhighlight %}
ProTip™: Access the site object using Liquid

Jekyll lets you access the site object through the context.registers feature of Liquid. For example, you can access the global configuration file _config.yml using context.registers.config.

### Flags There are two flags to be aware of when writing a plugin:
Flag Description

safe

A boolean flag that informs Jekyll whether this plugin may be safely executed in an environment where arbitrary code execution is not allowed. This is used by GitHub Pages to determine which core plugins may be used, and which are unsafe to run. If your plugin does not allow for arbitrary code, execution, set this to true. GitHub Pages still won’t load your plugin, but if you submit it for inclusion in core, it’s best for this to be correct!

priority

This flag determines what order the plugin is loaded in. Valid values are: :lowest, :low, :normal, :high, and :highest. Highest priority matches are applied first, lowest priority are applied last.

To use one of the example plugins above as an illustration, here is how you’d specify these two flags: {% highlight ruby %} module Jekyll class UpcaseConverter < Converter safe true priority :low ... end end {% endhighlight %} ## Available Plugins You can find a few useful plugins at the following locations: #### Generators - [ArchiveGenerator by Ilkka Laukkanen](https://gist.github.com/707909): Uses [this archive page](https://gist.github.com/707020) to generate archives. - [LESS.js Generator by Andy Fowler](https://gist.github.com/642739): Renders LESS.js files during generation. - [Version Reporter by Blake Smith](https://gist.github.com/449491): Creates a version.html file containing the Jekyll version. - [Sitemap.xml Generator by Michael Levin](https://github.com/kinnetica/jekyll-plugins): Generates a sitemap.xml file by traversing all of the available posts and pages. - [Full-text search by Pascal Widdershoven](https://github.com/PascalW/jekyll_indextank): Adds full-text search to your Jekyll site with a plugin and a bit of JavaScript. - [AliasGenerator by Thomas Mango](https://github.com/tsmango/jekyll_alias_generator): Generates redirect pages for posts when an alias is specified in the YAML Front Matter. - [Pageless Redirect Generator by Nick Quinlan](https://github.com/nquinlan/jekyll-pageless-redirects): Generates redirects based on files in the Jekyll root, with support for htaccess style redirects. - [Projectlist by Frederic Hemberger](https://github.com/fhemberger/jekyll-projectlist): Renders files in a directory as a single page instead of separate posts. - [RssGenerator by Assaf Gelber](https://github.com/agelber/jekyll-rss): Automatically creates an RSS 2.0 feed from your posts. #### Converters - [Jade plugin by John Papandriopoulos](https://github.com/snappylabs/jade-jekyll-plugin): Jade converter for Jekyll. - [HAML plugin by Sam Z](https://gist.github.com/517556): HAML converter for Jekyll. - [HAML-Sass Converter by Adam Pearson](https://gist.github.com/481456): Simple HAML-Sass converter for Jekyll. [Fork](https://gist.github.com/528642) by Sam X. - [Sass SCSS Converter by Mark Wolfe](https://gist.github.com/960150): Sass converter which uses the new CSS compatible syntax, based Sam X’s fork above. - [LESS Converter by Jason Graham](https://gist.github.com/639920): Convert LESS files to CSS. - [LESS Converter by Josh Brown](https://gist.github.com/760265): Simple LESS converter. - [Upcase Converter by Blake Smith](https://gist.github.com/449463): An example Jekyll converter. - [CoffeeScript Converter by phaer](https://gist.github.com/959938): A [CoffeeScript](http://coffeescript.org) to Javascript converter. - [Markdown References by Olov Lassus](https://github.com/olov/jekyll-references): Keep all your markdown reference-style link definitions in one \_references.md file. - [Stylus Converter](https://gist.github.com/988201): Convert .styl to .css. - [ReStructuredText Converter](https://github.com/xdissent/jekyll-rst): Converts ReST documents to HTML with Pygments syntax highlighting. - [Jekyll-pandoc-plugin](https://github.com/dsanson/jekyll-pandoc-plugin): Use pandoc for rendering markdown. - [Jekyll-pandoc-multiple-formats](https://github.com/fauno/jekyll-pandoc-multiple-formats) by [edsl](https://github.com/edsl): Use pandoc to generate your site in multiple formats. Supports pandoc’s markdown extensions. - [ReStructuredText Converter](https://github.com/xdissent/jekyll-rst): Converts ReST documents to HTML with Pygments syntax highlighting. - [Transform Layouts](https://gist.github.com/1472645): Allows HAML layouts (you need a HAML Converter plugin for this to work). #### Filters - [Truncate HTML](https://github.com/MattHall/truncatehtml) by [Matt Hall](http://codebeef.com): A Jekyll filter that truncates HTML while preserving markup structure. - [Domain Name Filter by Lawrence Woodman](https://github.com/LawrenceWoodman/domain_name-liquid_filter): Filters the input text so that just the domain name is left. - [Summarize Filter by Mathieu Arnold](https://gist.github.com/731597): Remove markup after a `
` tag. - [URL encoding by James An](https://gist.github.com/919275): Percent encoding for URIs. - [JSON Filter](https://gist.github.com/1850654) by [joelverhagen](https://github.com/joelverhagen): Filter that takes input text and outputs it as JSON. Great for rendering JavaScript. - [i18n_filter](https://github.com/gacha/gacha.id.lv/blob/master/_plugins/i18n_filter.rb): Liquid filter to use I18n localization. - [Smilify](https://github.com/SaswatPadhi/jekyll_smilify) by [SaswatPadhi](https://github.com/SaswatPadhi): Convert text emoticons in your content to themeable smiley pics ([Demo](http://saswatpadhi.github.com/)). - [Read in X Minutes](https://gist.github.com/zachleat/5792681) by [zachleat](https://github.com/zachleat): Estimates the reading time of a string (for blog post content). - [Jekyll-timeago](https://github.com/markets/jekyll-timeago): Converts a time value to the time ago in words. - [pluralize](https://github.com/bdesham/pluralize): Easily combine a number and a word into a gramatically-correct amount like “1 minute” or “2 minute**s**”. - [reading_time](https://github.com/bdesham/reading_time): Count words and estimate reading time for a piece of text, ignoring HTML elements that are unlikely to contain running text. - [Table of Content Generator](https://github.com/dafi/jekyll-toc-generator): Generate the HTML code containing a table of content (TOC), the TOC can be customized in many way, for example you can decide which pages can be without TOC. #### Tags - [Delicious Plugin by Christian Hellsten](https://github.com/christianhellsten/jekyll-plugins): Fetches and renders bookmarks from delicious.com. - [Ultraviolet Plugin by Steve Alex](https://gist.github.com/480380): Jekyll tag for the [Ultraviolet](http://ultraviolet.rubyforge.org/) code highligher. - [Tag Cloud Plugin by Ilkka Laukkanen](https://gist.github.com/710577): Generate a tag cloud that links to tag pages. - [GIT Tag by Alexandre Girard](https://gist.github.com/730347): Add Git activity inside a list. - [MathJax Liquid Tags by Jessy Cowan-Sharp](https://gist.github.com/834610): Simple liquid tags for Jekyll that convert inline math and block equations to the appropriate MathJax script tags. - [Non-JS Gist Tag by Brandon Tilley](https://gist.github.com/1027674) A Liquid tag that embeds Gists and shows code for non-JavaScript enabled browsers and readers. - [Render Time Tag by Blake Smith](https://gist.github.com/449509): Displays the time a Jekyll page was generated. - [Status.net/OStatus Tag by phaer](https://gist.github.com/912466): Displays the notices in a given status.net/ostatus feed. - [Raw Tag by phaer](https://gist.github.com/1020852): Keeps liquid from parsing text betweeen `raw` tags. - [Embed.ly client by Robert Böhnke](https://github.com/robb/jekyll-embedly-client): Autogenerate embeds from URLs using oEmbed. - [Logarithmic Tag Cloud](https://gist.github.com/2290195): Flexible. Logarithmic distribution. Documentation inline. - [oEmbed Tag by Tammo van Lessen](https://gist.github.com/1455726): Enables easy content embedding (e.g. from YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare) via oEmbed. - [FlickrSetTag by Thomas Mango](https://github.com/tsmango/jekyll_flickr_set_tag): Generates image galleries from Flickr sets. - [Tweet Tag by Scott W. Bradley](https://github.com/scottwb/jekyll-tweet-tag): Liquid tag for [Embedded Tweets](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/embedded-tweets) using Twitter’s shortcodes. - [Jekyll-contentblocks](https://github.com/rustygeldmacher/jekyll-contentblocks): Lets you use Rails-like content_for tags in your templates, for passing content from your posts up to your layouts. - [Generate YouTube Embed](https://gist.github.com/1805814) by [joelverhagen](https://github.com/joelverhagen): Jekyll plugin which allows you to embed a YouTube video in your page with the YouTube ID. Optionally specify width and height dimensions. Like “oEmbed Tag” but just for YouTube. - [Jekyll-beastiepress](https://github.com/okeeblow/jekyll-beastiepress): FreeBSD utility tags for Jekyll sites. - [Jsonball](https://gist.github.com/1895282): Reads json files and produces maps for use in Jekyll files. - [Bibjekyll](https://github.com/pablooliveira/bibjekyll): Render BibTeX-formatted bibliographies/citations included in posts and pages using bibtex2html. - [Jekyll-citation](https://github.com/archome/jekyll-citation): Render BibTeX-formatted bibliographies/citations included in posts and pages (pure Ruby). - [Jekyll Dribbble Set Tag](https://github.com/ericdfields/Jekyll-Dribbble-Set-Tag): Builds Dribbble image galleries from any user. - [Debbugs](https://gist.github.com/2218470): Allows posting links to Debian BTS easily. - [Refheap_tag](https://github.com/aburdette/refheap_tag): Liquid tag that allows embedding pastes from [refheap](https://refheap.com). - [Jekyll-devonly_tag](https://gist.github.com/2403522): A block tag for including markup only during development. - [JekyllGalleryTag](https://github.com/redwallhp/JekyllGalleryTag) by [redwallhp](https://github.com/redwallhp): Generates thumbnails from a directory of images and displays them in a grid. - [Youku and Tudou Embed](https://gist.github.com/Yexiaoxing/5891929): Liquid plugin for embedding Youku and Tudou videos. - [Jekyll-swfobject](https://github.com/sectore/jekyll-swfobject): Liquid plugin for embedding Adobe Flash files (.swf) using [SWFObject](http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/). - [Jekyll Picture Tag](https://github.com/robwierzbowski/jekyll-picture-tag): Easy responsive images for Jekyll. Based on the proposed [``](http://picture.responsiveimages.org/) element, polyfilled with Scott Jehl’s [Picturefill](https://github.com/scottjehl/picturefill). - [Jekyll Image Tag](https://github.com/robwierzbowski/jekyll-image-tag): Better images for Jekyll. Save image presets, generate resized images, and add classes, alt text, and other attributes. - [Ditaa Tag](https://github.com/matze/jekyll-ditaa) by [matze](https://github.com/matze): Renders ASCII diagram art into PNG images and inserts a figure tag. - [Good Include](https://github.com/penibelst/jekyll-good-include) by [Anatol Broder](http://penibelst.de/): Strips newlines and whitespaces from the end of include files before processing. - [Jekyll Suggested Tweet](https://github.com/davidensinger/jekyll-suggested-tweet) by [David Ensinger](https://github.com/davidensinger/): A Liquid tag for Jekyll that allows for the embedding of suggested tweets via Twitter’s Web Intents API. - [Jekyll Date Chart](https://github.com/GSI/jekyll_date_chart) by [GSI](https://github.com/GSI): Block that renders date line charts based on textile-formatted tables. - [Jekyll Image Encode](https://github.com/GSI/jekyll_image_encode) by [GSI](https://github.com/GSI): Tag that renders base64 codes of images fetched from the web. - [Jekyll Quick Man](https://github.com/GSI/jekyll_quick_man) by [GSI](https://github.com/GSI): Tag that renders pretty links to man page sources on the internet. #### Collections - [Jekyll Plugins by Recursive Design](http://recursive-design.com/projects/jekyll-plugins/): Plugins to generate Project pages from GitHub readmes, a Category page, and a Sitemap generator. - [Company website and blog plugins](https://github.com/flatterline/jekyll-plugins) by Flatterline, a [Ruby on Rails development company](http://flatterline.com/): Portfolio/project page generator, team/individual page generator, an author bio liquid tag for use on posts, and a few other smaller plugins. - [Jekyll plugins by Aucor](https://github.com/aucor/jekyll-plugins): Plugins for trimming unwanted newlines/whitespace and sorting pages by weight attribute. #### Other - [Pygments Cache Path by Raimonds Simanovskis](https://github.com/rsim/blog.rayapps.com/blob/master/_plugins/pygments_cache_patch.rb): Plugin to cache syntax-highlighted code from Pygments. - [Draft/Publish Plugin by Michael Ivey](https://gist.github.com/49630): Save posts as drafts. - [Growl Notification Generator by Tate Johnson](https://gist.github.com/490101): Send Jekyll notifications to Growl. - [Growl Notification Hook by Tate Johnson](https://gist.github.com/525267): Better alternative to the above, but requires his “hook” fork. - [Related Posts by Lawrence Woodman](https://github.com/LawrenceWoodman/related_posts-jekyll_plugin): Overrides `site.related_posts` to use categories to assess relationship. - [Tiered Archives by Eli Naeher](https://gist.github.com/88cda643aa7e3b0ca1e5): Create tiered template variable that allows you to group archives by year and month. - [Jekyll-localization](https://github.com/blackwinter/jekyll-localization): Jekyll plugin that adds localization features to the rendering engine. - [Jekyll-rendering](https://github.com/blackwinter/jekyll-rendering): Jekyll plugin to provide alternative rendering engines. - [Jekyll-pagination](https://github.com/blackwinter/jekyll-pagination): Jekyll plugin to extend the pagination generator. - [Jekyll-tagging](https://github.com/pattex/jekyll-tagging): Jekyll plugin to automatically generate a tag cloud and tag pages. - [Jekyll-scholar](https://github.com/inukshuk/jekyll-scholar): Jekyll extensions for the blogging scholar. - [Jekyll-asset_bundler](https://github.com/moshen/jekyll-asset_bundler): Bundles and minifies JavaScript and CSS. - [Jekyll-assets](http://ixti.net/jekyll-assets/) by [ixti](https://github.com/ixti): Rails-alike assets pipeline (write assets in CoffeeScript, Sass, LESS etc; specify dependencies for automatic bundling using simple declarative comments in assets; minify and compress; use JST templates; cache bust; and many-many more). - [File compressor](https://gist.github.com/2758691) by [mytharcher](https://github.com/mytharcher): Compress HTML and JavaScript files on site build. - [Jekyll-minibundle](https://github.com/tkareine/jekyll-minibundle): Asset bundling and cache busting using external minification tool of your choice. No gem dependencies. - [Singlepage-jekyll](https://github.com/JCB-K/singlepage-jekyll) by [JCB-K](https://github.com/JCB-K): Turns Jekyll into a dynamic one-page website. - [generator-jekyllrb](https://github.com/robwierzbowski/generator-jekyllrb): A generator that wraps Jekyll in [Yeoman](http://yeoman.io/), a tool collection and workflow for builing modern web apps. - [grunt-jekyll](https://github.com/dannygarcia/grunt-jekyll): A straightforward [Grunt](http://gruntjs.com/) plugin for Jekyll. - [jekyll-postfiles](https://github.com/indirect/jekyll-postfiles): Add `_postfiles` directory and {% raw %}`{{ postfile }}`{% endraw %} tag so the files a post refers to will always be right there inside your repo.
Jekyll Plugins Wanted

If you have a Jekyll plugin that you would like to see added to this list, you should read the contributing page to find out how to make that happen.