Coordination at Scale Laboratory Website

This repository contains the Astro-based website for the Virginia Tech Coordination at Scale Laboratory (CAS Lab).

Primary public URLs:

• https://caslab-vt.github.io/
• https://caslab.ece.vt.edu/

The site is built as a static Astro project and deployed with GitHub Actions through GitHub Pages. The same deployed site can also be served from the university domain.

Stack

• Astro
• Tailwind CSS
• React
• Pagefind

Local Development

Requirements:

• Node.js >= 22.12.0

Install dependencies:

npm install

Start the local development server:

npm run dev

Build the production site:

npm run build

Run Astro checks:

npm run lint

Project Structure

• src/pages/ - site routes
• src/content/ - structured lab content
• src/assets/ - images and local media
• public/ - static files copied directly to the build
• .github/workflows/deploy-pages.yml - GitHub Pages deployment workflow

Reference and scrape artifacts that are not part of the live site have been moved under archive/.

Deployment

This repository is intended to be the special GitHub Pages organization site repository.

For the root GitHub Pages URL to work, the names must match exactly:

• GitHub organization/account: caslab-vt
• Repository name: caslab-vt.github.io

That exact pairing produces:

• repository URL: https://github.com/caslab-vt/caslab-vt.github.io
• site URL: https://caslab-vt.github.io/

If the repository name changes to anything else, GitHub Pages will no longer publish at the root URL and will instead use a project-style path.

Recommended Release Sequence

1. Commit local changes.
2. Update the local origin remote if it still points to the old repository name.
3. Push to main.
4. Enable GitHub Pages with GitHub Actions as the source.
5. Confirm the site is live at https://caslab-vt.github.io/.
6. Configure the custom domain in GitHub Pages.
7. Ask university IT to point caslab.ece.vt.edu to GitHub Pages.

GitHub Pages

1. Push changes to main.
2. In GitHub, open Settings -> Pages.
3. Under Build and deployment, set Source to GitHub Actions.
4. Do not choose Deploy from a branch.
5. Do not use Jekyll for this repository. This is an Astro site and must be published by the workflow in .github/workflows/deploy-pages.yml.
6. After the push, open the Actions tab and confirm that the Deploy to GitHub Pages workflow runs successfully.
7. Once the workflow finishes, confirm the site loads at https://caslab-vt.github.io/.

Exact local commands:

git add .
git commit -m "Update CAS Lab website"
git push origin main

Custom Domain

For the university domain:

1. In GitHub, open Settings -> Pages.
2. Set the custom domain to caslab.ece.vt.edu.
3. In Settings -> Secrets and variables -> Actions -> Variables, add:

PAGES_SITE_URL = https://caslab.ece.vt.edu

4. Ask the university IT team to create a DNS CNAME record:

caslab.ece.vt.edu -> caslab-vt.github.io

5. After DNS propagates, return to Settings -> Pages and verify GitHub can issue HTTPS for the custom domain.

If the university does not allow direct GitHub Pages DNS mapping, they may instead provide a reverse proxy.

Git Remote

This repository should use the following git remote:

git@github.com:caslab-vt/caslab-vt.github.io.git

If your local clone still points to the old repository name, update it with:

git remote set-url origin git@github.com:caslab-vt/caslab-vt.github.io.git
git remote -v

Expected output:

origin  git@github.com:caslab-vt/caslab-vt.github.io.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:caslab-vt/caslab-vt.github.io.git (push)

At the time of this note, a common post-rename issue is that the local clone still points to:

git@github.com:caslab-vt/website-caslab.git

That should be updated before the next push.

Notes

• The local folder name does not need to match the GitHub repository name.
• The site is configured to work both at the GitHub Pages root URL and at the custom university domain.