Why can't I publish my site onto GitHub Pages? And why can't I add Jekyll themes?

Question

I just committed a html and css file onto my repo, but even 10 minutes later I still keep getting a 404 Not Found error. I was advised to add a Jekyll theme to the repo, but for some reasons I only have a link that leads me to an informational page on how to add themes rather that letting me actually add it to the repo?

If I'm not mistaken, isn't Jekyll supposed to be built into GitHub Pages? If so why can't I choose a theme? If not, how do I link it to GitHub Pages?

Answer 1

Try and, as I mentioned here to:

• publish with a custom GitHub Actions workflow
• Using a starter workflow, which does include one for Jekyll.

Answer 2

I recently answered a question about an old blog post from 2021 that mentioned the theme-chooser when setting up GitHub pages. As this has been removed from the page, you can add a theme to your page by adding a _config.yml file.

The link to the GitHub docs explains how to set a theme for your site.

Under point 5 the page says:

Add a new line to the file for the theme name.