Session Log

A running log of what occurred in each Claude Code session. Newest entries at the top.

Each entry records: date, a summary of what was done, and files touched.

2026-09-08 — Theme color overhaul (dark + light) & homepage copy

Summary

• Dark theme rework (_sass/theme/_dark.scss): the old theme was really a mid-gray (#474747), not a true dark mode, and had a few issues. Changes:
  • Background #474747 → #1e1e1e (deep neutral); elevated surfaces #2a2a2a/#333.
  • Body text #fff → #e8e8e8 (less glare); muted text/borders split out — muted text #a0a4a8, borders #3a3a3a (were both the bright #bdc1c4).
  • Link #0ea1c5 → #38bdf0 (brighter, AA-contrast). Fixed a real bug: link hover used to go darker (#0b7994) on the dark bg; now goes lighter (#6acef4).
  • Code blocks were a glaring near-white (#fafafa) box in dark mode → dark surface #2a2a2a with #e0e0e0 text. Masthead link hover brightens to #fff.
• Light theme contrast fixes (_sass/theme/_default.scss):
  • Link #52adc8 (~2.2:1, failed AA) → #2f7f93 (deeper teal, ~4.8:1); hover #1d5c6b.
  • Muted text #9ba1a6 (~2.6:1) → #6b7176 (~4.6:1) — affects homepage subtitle, field pills, research coauthor lines, figure captions.
  • Border #f2f3f3 (near-invisible; homepage photo border barely showed) → #e4e6e8.
  • Left the soft near-black body text (#494e52) as-is.
  • Accent hue kept in the same teal/cyan family across both modes for consistency.
• Both changes are global (all pages) and compile via SCSS, so no server restart needed.
• Homepage copy (_pages/about.md, iterated a few times, final is Raymond’s own wording lightly edited): short research-focused blurb + Fall 2026 job-market line.
• Field pills relabeled to: International Economics, Labor, Sovereign Debt.

Files touched

• _sass/theme/_dark.scss (dark palette overhaul)
• _sass/theme/_default.scss (light-mode link/muted-text/border contrast fixes)
• _pages/about.md (fields relabeled; about-page blurb rewritten)

Note

• Research-page cards define their own dark hover color (#525252) directly in research.md rather than via theme variables; against the new #1e1e1e dark bg they read as raised gray boxes. Left as-is; can be deepened to match if it looks too bright.
• Still all uncommitted (working tree only).

2026-09-08 — Homepage redesign (centered nav + two-column hero)

Summary

• Centered the top navigation site-wide: added a small <style> to _includes/head/custom.html (.greedy-nav .visible-links { margin: 0 auto }). The nav is a display:table, so auto side-margins center the whole group (site title + links + theme toggle). Global (all pages), theme-aware.
• Created a dedicated homepage layout _layouts/home.html and pointed about.md at it (layout: home). Iterated on the design in three steps:
  1. First a centered single-column hero (profile photo + name + links centered on top), scoped to the homepage only (other pages keep the left-sidebar layout).
  2. Then, per request, switched to a two-column hero: rectangular photo (rounded corners, ~250px, natural portrait aspect) on the left; on the right the name, a subtitle, field pills, the biography, and contact links. Responsive: stacks and centers on screens ≤600px.
• Right-column content (driven by about.md front matter so it stays editable):
  • subtitle: "Ph.D. in Economics Candidate, University of Texas at Austin"
  • fields: list rendered as rounded outline pills — International Macroeconomics, Labor Economics, Sovereign Debt.
  • Biography, then contact links.
• Contact links: reuse the author-profile.html include inside the hero with its avatar/name/Follow-button hidden via CSS, showing only the links as a left-aligned row.
• Removed location and linkedin from the author: block in _config.yml (commented out, not deleted) — removes “Austin, Texas” and “LinkedIn” everywhere (homepage hero + sidebars on other pages). NOTE: _config.yml is not hot-reloaded by jekyll serve, so the server must be restarted after this change.
• Rewrote the homepage bio in about.md as a mock, research-focused blurb (placeholder for Raymond to edit) to remove repetition with the new subtitle + field pills; kept the “on the academic job market in Fall 2026” line.
• All homepage CSS is scoped inside _layouts/home.html and uses theme variables, so dark mode works and no other page is affected. The top-nav centering is the only global change.

Files touched

• _includes/head/custom.html (global nav-centering <style>)
• _layouts/home.html (new homepage layout: two-column hero + subtitle + field pills)
• _pages/about.md (layout: home, subtitle/fields front matter, new research blurb)
• _config.yml (commented out author.location and author.linkedin)

Open items / next time

• Everything is uncommitted (working tree only), alongside earlier uncommitted work.
• Raymond is going to sit with the homepage design and revisit later — the bio blurb, field list, subtitle, and photo crop are all placeholders/easy to tweak.
• Possible follow-ups discussed but not done: forcing a portrait crop on the photo; centering the masthead nav on the homepage only (currently global); enlarging the name.

2026-09-08 — Research page redesign, image cleanup, site font fix, unused-page purge

Summary

• Deleted 7 unused template demo images from images/ (verified unreferenced across the whole repo). Kept the 3 in use: bio-photo.jpg, bio-photo-2.jpg (_data/authors.yml), raymondhe1.jpg (_config.yml). Note: images live in images/, not files/images/.
• Redesigned the Research page (_pages/research.md, the live page — research.html is empty template leftover since no research collection is defined) to mimic Ryohei Oishi’s site (ryohei-oishi.github.io). Each Working Paper is now a card: bold title, gray coauthor/status line, an always-visible control row with a “▶ Abstract” toggle plus outlined link buttons (red Paper, blue others). Hovering a paper expands its abstract (which sits above the controls), rotates the triangle, and highlights the card. Works-in-Progress entries are plain titles (nothing to expand). Abstracts are justified. Fully dark-mode aware via local CSS variables overridden under html[data-theme="dark"] (fixes the previously washed-out “Works in Progress” text in night mode). Titles are plain text (not links); the red Paper button is the PDF link.

• Fixed the site-wide font (_sass/_themes.scss): changed the $sans-serif stack from the stale Safari-only ".SFNSText-Regular"/"San Francisco" names to -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Roboto", … — matching the Minimal Mistakes default that Oishi’s site uses. BlinkMacSystemFont makes Chrome render the San Francisco system font too (previously Chrome fell through to Helvetica Neue). Applies to the whole site since everything inherits $sans-serif.

• Purged unused pages and template cruft (all verified unreferenced across nav, permalinks, links, config, and a clean jekyll build --safe afterward):
  • Deleted 10 unused .html pages from _pages/: research.html and computational_benchmarks.html (empty duplicates of the live .md pages — removing them also cleared the permalink conflicts), plus the template demo pages collection-archive, page-archive, year-archive, talkmap, category-archive, tag-archive, portfolio, publications.
  • Deleted 4 unused demo .md pages from _pages/: markdown.md, archive-layout-with-content.md, non-menu-page.md, terms.md.
  • Deleted the leftover academicpages sample collections: all 5 _publications/ entries (“Paper Title Number 1”…), both _portfolio/ entries, and the now-empty _publications/ and _portfolio/ directories.
  • _config.yml: removed publications:/portfolio: from collections:, removed their defaults: scopes, and removed the category_archive:/tag_archive: settings (site uses no tags/categories taxonomy and those archive pages are gone).
  • Remaining _pages/ (all real): 404.md, about.md, research.md, computational_benchmarks.md, sitemap.md, teaching.html (live Teaching page, in nav). teaching.html was deliberately kept — it is the display page for the real _teaching collection.

Local preview environment (workarounds, no committed project files changed for these)

• System Ruby was 2.6 (too old). Installed Ruby via Homebrew; settled on ruby@3.3 (keg-only) for this old GitHub-Pages-pinned Jekyll 3.9 stack.
• Served with --safe (skips a bogus jekyll-theme plugin entry in _config.yml that GitHub Pages also ignores) plus a RUBYOPT shim in the scratchpad that re-adds the no-op tainted?/taint/untaint methods Ruby 3.2+ removed but Liquid 4.0.3 still calls.
• Run command: PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby@3.3/bin:$PATH" RUBYOPT="-r<scratchpad>/taint_shim.rb" bundle exec jekyll serve --safe -l -H localhost

Files touched

• images/ (deleted 7 unused .jpg files)
• _pages/research.md (rewritten as interactive hover-expand cards)
• _sass/_themes.scss (updated $sans-serif font stack)
• _pages/ (deleted 10 unused .html + 4 demo .md pages)
• _publications/, _portfolio/ (deleted all sample entries + the empty dirs)
• _config.yml (removed publications/portfolio collections + defaults, and category/tag archive settings)

2026-09-08

Summary

• Created README.md documenting the repository’s directory structure (replaced the upstream academicpages template README).
• Added a Ground rules (non-negotiable) section to CLAUDE.md: (1) never delete or destructively change data/code without express permission, (2) never operate outside this repository directory without express permission.
• Created this session_log.md.

Files touched

• README.md (rewritten)
• CLAUDE.md (added ground rules section)
• session_log.md (new)