Minimal Mistakes

The most popular Jekyll theme on GitHub. A flexible two-column theme perfect for personal sites, blogs, project documentation, and portfolios — with 12 layout skins and deep customization.

Michael Rose Updated Mar 01, 2024

About this Theme

Minimal Mistakes is the undisputed king of Jekyll themes — with over 12,800 GitHub stars it is the most-forked, most-starred, and most-used Jekyll theme ever created. Built by Michael Rose over more than a decade of active development, it strikes the perfect balance between simplicity and power.

The theme’s signature two-column layout places your content front and centre while keeping navigation and author information accessible in a persistent sidebar. Twelve built-in colour skins let you switch the visual tone of your site with a single config change — from the crisp default to dark, high-contrast, and everything in between.

What makes Minimal Mistakes genuinely exceptional is its documentation. Every feature has a dedicated docs page, every option is explained, and edge cases are covered. Whether you are building a personal blog, a project documentation site, or a portfolio with a contact form, you will find a layout and configuration that fits.

Who is it for? Developers, technical writers, researchers, and bloggers who want a battle-tested, feature-complete Jekyll theme they can deploy today and customise for years.

Installation

# Remote theme (recommended for GitHub Pages)
# Add to your _config.yml:
remote_theme: "mmistakes/minimal-mistakes@4.28.0"

plugins:
  - jekyll-include-cache

Or install as a gem: