GitHub Education, VSCode Setup, and Customizing Minimal Mistakes S26

Getting Started with GitHub Education and Customizing Your Site

Here we look at three important steps to getting on track for Distant Coding: verifying your GitHub Education activation, setting up VSCode with your GitHub Education account, and making simple customizations to your Minimal Mistakes template. An introduction to GitHub Copilot agent mode can be found here.

Part 1: Confirming Your GitHub Education Status

GitHub Education provides free features for students, including unlimited private repositories and access to developer tools for their GitHub account.

How to verify your GitHub Education is activated:

Remember that some interfaces change with time and the exact naming can change without notice.

1. Log into your GitHub account at github.com
2. Click your profile icon in the top-right corner and select Settings.
3. In the left sidebar, click Billing and licensing
4. Look for a section titled Education benefits
5. You should see a message confirming your academic status has been verified and your benefits are active, along with an expiration date
6. Alternatively, you can check your account by visiting github.com/students and signing in—you’ll see a checkmark if your benefits are active

If your GitHub Education is not yet activated, you can apply at the GitHub Education page by providing proof of your student status (student ID, enrollment verification, or .edu email address). You need to be on campus when you make the application and allow your location to be verified.

Part 2: Setting Up VSCode with GitHub Education

Once you have your GitHub Education account activated, you can use VSCode as your primary editor and integrate it directly with GitHub.

Steps to connect VSCode to GitHub:

1. Install VSCode from code.visualstudio.com
2. Install the GitHub Copilot extension:
   • Open VSCode and go to the Extensions panel (Ctrl+Shift+X on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+X on Mac). You can also see the icon for extensions in the left hand panel. It looks like four blocks, one of which is at a diagonal.
   • Search for “GitHub Copilot Chat Extension” and click Install
   • You may need to restart VSCode, but you should see a chat icon with a drop down menu.

Part 3: Simple Customizations to Minimal Mistakes

The Minimal Mistakes template is highly customizable. Here are some simple changes you can make to personalize your site:

1. Update Site Title and Description

Edit the _config.yml file in your repository:

title: Your Site Title Here
description: A brief description of your site
url: "https://yourusername.github.io"

2. Customize the Navigation Menu

Edit _data/navigation.yml to add links:

main:
  - title: "Posts"
    url: /
  - title: "Categories"
    url: /categories/
  - title: "Tags"
    url: /tags/
  - title: "About"
    url: /about/

3. Add a Custom Theme Color

In _config.yml, you can specify a skin (built-in color scheme):

minimal_mistakes_skin: "default" # other options: air, aqua, contrast, dark, dirt, neon, mint, plum, sunrise

4. Update Your Author Information

In _config.yml, find the author: section and update:

author:
  name: "Your Name"
  avatar: "/assets/images/profile.jpg"
  bio: "Your bio here"
  location: "Your location"
  email: your.email@example.com
  links:
    - label: "Website"
      icon: "fas fa-fw fa-link"
      url: "https://yourwebsite.com"
    - label: "GitHub"
      icon: "fab fa-fw fa-github"
      url: "https://github.com/yourusername"

5. Enable Comments (Optional)

In _config.yml, you can enable Disqus comments:

comments:
  provider: "disqus"
  disqus:
    shortname: "your-disqus-shortname"

Pushing Your Changes:

After making edits in VSCode:

1. Open GitHub Desktop and make sure you are in the repository for the Minimal Mistakes theme you forked.
2. Review your changes
3. Enter a commit message (e.g., “Update site title and navigation”)
4. Click commit to master.
5. Click push commits to origin remote to push to GitHub.

Your site will automatically rebuild within a few minutes. You can check the status in your repository’s Actions tab on GitHub. or look for the green check.

Next Steps

With GitHub Education activated, VSCode set up, and your site customized, you’re ready to start creating content! In future posts, we’ll explore creating pages, organizing posts by categories, and more advanced customizations.

Enjoy!

Later, we will learn how to make commits directly in VSCode. For now the step of passing to GitHub desktop is intentionally designed to slow us down.