# Configure your site

The basic settings and configuration for your site reside in the `_config.yaml` file.

Example:

```yaml
### basic settings

# site properties and page defaults
title: Lab Website Template
subtitle: A template by the Greene Lab
description: An easy-to-use, flexible website template for labs, with automatic citations, GitHub tag imports, pre-built components, and more.
logo-text: false
header: images/background.jpg
footer: images/background.jpg
header-dark: false
footer-dark: false
proofer: false

# site social media and other links
links:
  email: jane.smith@your-lab.com
  orcid: 0000-0001-8713-9213
  google-scholar: ETJoidYAAAAJ
  github: your-lab
  twitter: YourLabHandle
  instagram: YourLabHandle
  youtube: YourLabChannel

### Jekyll settings to ignore
...
```

<table><thead><tr><th width="220.33333333333331">Parameter</th><th width="383">Description</th><th>Default</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><code>title</code></td><td><p>Title of your site. Appears in the tab title, in the header, and in <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=html+meta+tags">page metadata</a>.<br><br>Use a short version of your lab's name if you have one so it can fit nicely in these spots. Aim for less than 20 characters.</p><p></p><p>Tip: If your lab name is long, use an abbreviated version here, then display the full name at the top of your homepage.</p></td><td></td></tr><tr><td><code>subtitle</code></td><td>Appears in the header next to your site title, smaller and more subtle. Useful for slogans or affiliations.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td><code>description</code></td><td>Default description that will show under search engine results. Can be overridden on <a href="/pages/lldu0c4loqgVHAAq4Q9U">individual pages</a>.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td><code>show-title</code> /  <code>show-subtitle</code> </td><td>Whether to show your site title/subtitle next to your logo in the header. Set to <code>false</code> if your logo image already contains text that you don't want to be displayed twice. This does not remove your site title from the tab name, metadata, or anything else.</td><td><code>true</code></td></tr><tr><td><code>header</code> / <code>footer</code></td><td>Default background image for the header/footer. Can be overridden on <a href="/pages/lldu0c4loqgVHAAq4Q9U">individual pages</a>.</td><td>Solid color background</td></tr><tr><td><code>header-dark</code> / <code>footer-dark</code></td><td>Default header/footer dark/light mode. Can be overridden on <a href="/pages/lldu0c4loqgVHAAq4Q9U">individual pages</a>.</td><td><code>true</code></td></tr><tr><td><code>links</code></td><td>Social media links for your lab to show in the footer of every page, without any prefixes like <code>@</code>, <code>www.</code>, etc.<br><br>See <code>/_data/types.yaml</code> for what types of links are built-in or to add your own.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td><code>proofer</code></td><td><p>Whether to use <a href="https://github.com/gjtorikian/html-proofer">html-proofer</a> to check your site for broken links, images, and more. </p><p></p><p>If broken items are found, a <strong>warning</strong> is shown in your <a href="/pages/EBe4wGii4rSjplv8Jcrn#on-github-remotely">Actions workflow logs</a> or your <a href="/pages/EBe4wGii4rSjplv8Jcrn#on-your-computer-locally">console</a>. It is <strong>not</strong> a critical error that will prevent your site from building, because it is not perfect: there can be false positives and true negatives.</p><p></p><p>It is <strong>disabled</strong> by default because it can add quite a bit of time to updating/building your remote or local previews.</p></td><td><code>false</code></td></tr></tbody></table>

{% hint style="info" %}
Headers/footers/sections have a solid color that overlays any background image to always maintain readability of text.
{% endhint %}


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://greene-lab.gitbook.io/lab-website-template-docs/~/changes/i7RDBjuWCIkfNmYxvoTx/basics/configure-your-site.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.