SBPL — Search-Based Planning Lab Website

Static website for the Search-Based Planning Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. Built with Hugo and Pico.css.

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Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Hugo (extended edition, v0.120+)

Run Locally

hugo serve

Open http://localhost:1313 in your browser. Changes are live-reloaded automatically.

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How To: Common Tasks

Add Yourself as a Lab Member

1. Open data/members/current.yaml
2. Copy an existing entry and fill in your details:

   - name: "Your Full Name"          # MUST match your name in publications exactly
     slug: "your-full-name"           # lowercase, hyphens (auto-generated from name)
     category: "phd"                  # phd | masters | undergraduate | postdoc
     year: "1st year"                 # optional
     photo: "/images/members/your-full-name.jpg"
     bio: >
       A short paragraph about your research interests
       and background.
     links:
       website: "https://yoursite.com"      # optional
       scholar: "https://scholar.google..." # optional
       github: "https://github.com/you"     # optional

3. Add your headshot photo to static/images/members/your-full-name.jpg
   • Square aspect ratio (400×400px recommended)
   • JPEG format, reasonable file size (<500KB)
4. Commit and push. The site deploys automatically.

Add a Publication

1. Create a new file content/publications/short-descriptive-name.md:

   ---
   title: "Your Paper Title"
   date: 2025-06-15                # Publication date
   authors:                        # MUST match names in data/members/*.yaml
     - "Your Name"
     - "Coauthor Name"
     - "Maxim Likhachev"
   first_authors: 2                # optional: number of co-first authors
   venue: "ICRA 2025"
   description: "A one-sentence summary of the paper for the card view."
   thumbnail: "/images/publications/short-descriptive-name.gif"
   arxiv: "https://arxiv.org/abs/XXXX.XXXXX"          # optional
   project_page: "https://yourproject.github.io/"      # optional
   code: "https://github.com/your/repo"                # optional
   draft: false
   ---
   
   Optional extended abstract or description (rendered on the publication's page).

2. Add a thumbnail GIF/image to static/images/publications/short-descriptive-name.gif
   • Small animated GIF showing key result (~180×120px display, keep file <2MB)
3. Important: Make sure author names in the authors list match exactly how they appear in data/members/current.yaml or data/members/alumni.yaml. This is how publications auto-link to member profiles.
4. Co-first authors: To mark multiple authors as equal contributors, add first_authors: N where N is the number of co-first authors (counted from the top of the authors list). They will be displayed with a * superscript and an "Equal contribution" note.
5. Commit and push.

Move a Student to Alumni

1. Open data/members/current.yaml, find the student's entry
2. Cut (remove) their entire YAML block
3. Paste it into data/members/alumni.yaml
4. Add the now_at field and optionally a graduated year:

   - name: "Student Name"
     slug: "student-name"
     category: "phd"
     graduated: "2025"
     now_at: "Research Scientist at Google DeepMind"
     # ... rest of their existing fields ...

5. Commit and push. Their publications remain linked automatically.

Update the PI Information

Edit data/members/pi.yaml. Fields:

• name, title, photo, email, bio, research_vision, links

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How Cross-Referencing Works

Publications and members are linked automatically via Hugo's taxonomy system:

1. Each publication lists its authors in front matter
2. Hugo auto-generates a page at /authors/author-name/ listing all their papers
3. Member cards check /authors/<slug>/ to count and link to that member's publications
4. The key: the name field in member YAML must exactly match the name string used in publication authors lists

This means:

• Adding a publication automatically updates every co-author's profile
• No need to manually maintain per-person publication lists
• Moving a member to alumni doesn't break their publication links

Deployment

The site auto-deploys to GitHub Pages via GitHub Actions on every push to main.

First-Time Setup

1. Go to your GitHub repo → Settings → Pages
2. Under "Source", select "GitHub Actions"
3. Push to main — the workflow in .github/workflows/deploy.yml handles the rest

Custom Domain

To use a custom domain (e.g., sbpl.cs.cmu.edu):

1. Add a CNAME file to static/ containing your domain
2. Configure DNS to point to GitHub Pages
3. Update baseURL in hugo.toml