Alembic

Alembic by David Darnes sits in a useful niche: it’s not trying to be a finished product, but a thoughtfully constructed starting point. Where most themes give you a complete design you then try to undo, Alembic gives you a clean foundation with sensible defaults that you build on top of.

The design is intentionally restrained — clean typography, a minimal header, and content that fills the page without competing with heavy UI chrome. It ships with common Jekyll patterns already wired up: SEO tags, a sitemap, an RSS feed, social sharing links, and responsive navigation that works across all screen sizes.

Configuration is all in _config.yml, including colour scheme options, navigation items, and social links. There’s no need to dig into templates for basic customisation — it’s designed to get out of your way and let you focus on content and design decisions that matter.

Who is it for? Developers who want a solid, well-structured Jekyll starter they can customise and extend rather than fight against.

Installation

# Add to your Gemfile:
gem "alembic-jekyll-theme"

# Or use as remote theme:
remote_theme: daviddarnes/alembic