CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

Project Overview

This is the Jekyll-based website for GERDA (German Election Database), hosted at german-elections.com. The site provides documentation and download access for harmonized German election datasets (municipal, state, and federal elections).

Jekyll website repo — the research-root ../CLAUDE.md R / stats conventions do not apply here.

Development Commands

# Install dependencies
bundle install

# Run local development server (auto-reloads on file changes)
bundle exec jekyll serve

# Build static site to _site/
bundle exec jekyll build

Note: Changes to _config.yml require restarting the server.

Architecture

Static Site Generator: Jekyll 4.3.3 with Minima theme

Content Pages (Markdown with YAML front matter):

  • index.md - Homepage with project overview, author info, citation
  • election-data.md - Data download links and dataset descriptions
  • r-package.md - R package documentation
  • usage_notes.md - Detailed usage notes and data sources

Configuration:

  • _config.yml - Jekyll settings, site metadata, navigation order (header_pages)
  • Gemfile - Ruby dependencies

Related Repositories:

  • Data processing: https://github.com/awiedem/german_election_data
  • R package: https://github.com/hhilbig/gerda
    • Local checkout: /Users/hanno/Documents/GitHub/gerda — consult when verifying that r-package.md matches the package’s actual functions, signatures, dataset catalog, and version. Canonical sources inside the checkout: DESCRIPTION (version), NAMESPACE (exported functions), NEWS.md (change history), README.md (reference prose), and R/*.R (function signatures and roxygen help).