Installation

Minimal Mistakes requires 11ty 3.0. Make sure to run npm install if you aren’t on the latest version to update all dependencies.

If you are creating a new 11ty site using Minimal Mistakes follow these steps:

  1. Fork the Minimal Mistakes repo.
  2. Clone the repo you just forked and rename it.
  3. Install node and run npm install to install all dependencies.
  4. Update _data/site.yml, _data/navigation.yml, and replace demo posts and pages with your own. Full details below.
  5. Update eleventy.js and add your collections. Full details below.

If you want to use Minimal Mistakes with an existing 11ty site follow these steps:

  1. Download Minimal Mistakes in the version, you want, and unzip.
  2. Rename minimal-mistakes-master to something meaningful ie: new-site
  3. Run npm install to install all dependencies.
  4. Remove demo posts/pages and replace with your own posts, pages, and any other content you want to move over.
  5. Update posts’ and pages’ YAML to match variables used by Minimal Mistakes. Full details below.
  6. Update _data/site.yml, _data/navigation.yml, and replace demo posts and pages with your own. Full details below.
  7. Update eleventy.js and add your collections. Full details below.

Pro-tip: Delete the gh-pages branch after cloning and start fresh by branching off master. There is a bunch of garbage in gh-pages used for the theme’s demo site that I’m guessing you won’t want.

Download Minimal Mistakes Theme

ProTip: Be sure to remove /docs and /test if you forked or downloaded Minimal Mistakes. These folders contain documentation and test pages for the theme and you probably don’t want them littering up in your repo.

Theme migration

To move over any existing content you’ll want to copy the contents of your _posts folder to the new site. Along with any pages, collections, data files, images, or other assets you may have.

Next you’ll need to convert posts and pages to use the proper layouts and settings. In most cases you simply need to update _data/site.yml to your liking and set the correct layout in their YAML Front Matter.

Front Matter defaults are your friend and I encourage you to leverage them instead of setting a layout and other global options in each post/page’s YAML Front Matter.

Posts can be configured to use the single layout with reading time, comments, social sharing links, and related posts enabled.

Adding the data file for the collection, e.g. _posts/_posts.json will set these defaults for all posts in that directory:

{
  "layout": "single",
  "read_time": true,
  "comments": true,
  "share": true,
  "related": true
}

Post/Page Settings: Be sure to read through the “Working with…” documentation to learn about all the options available to you. The theme has been designed to be flexible — with numerous settings for each.

Install dependencies

If this is your first time using 11ty be sure to read through the official documentation before jumping in. This guide assumes you have Node and npm installed and a basic understanding of how 11ty works.

To keep your sanity and better manage dependencies I strongly urge you to use package.json to handle all dependencies.

Doing so executes the npm versions specified in package-lock.json, when running npm run watch:eleventy.