Github’s new profile readme is all the rage right now.

Creating a self-updating profile readme helped me -

  • Start a technical blog within Github itself
  • Retrieve relevant information from within Github ecosystem (no separate blog)

This self-updating readme has been inspired from the work at Building a self-updating profile README for GitHub by Simon Willison.

Following are my steps towards creating the self-updating profile readme.

1. Create a technical blog within Github

I used the Github Learning Lab for GitHub Pages to learn this. I preferred the simple look of minima theme with the solarized-dark skin.

2. Create a TIL repo within Github

Same approach as for creating the technical blog. Used the basic Minimal theme for its clean design.

3. Self-Updating the readme for the TIL repo using Github actions

The following files from the repo are needed to self-update the readme.

  • requirements.txt (No change required)
  • update_readme.py (No change required)
  • README.md (Personalize this)
  • build_database.py (Personalize the url shown below) 
    url = "https://github.com/vidyabhandary/til/blob/master/{}".format(path)
  • Create a manual workflow using Github actions This will create a ./github/workflows directory with a main.yml file. Can rename this to build.yml or retain the existing name. Update with code from build.yml.

4. Create a repo with the same name as your Github ID

This is the special repository. Its README.md will appear on your public profile!

5. Self-updating read-me for the Github profile.

The following files from the repo are required to create the self-updating read-me for Github.

  • requirements.txt (No change required)
  • README.md (Personalize this)
  • build_readme.py (Personalize the urls shown below)
til_readme = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vidyabhandary/TIL/master/README.md"
entries = feedparser.parse("https://vidyabhandary.github.io/blog/feed.xml")["entries"]
  • Create a manual workflow using Github actions This will create a ./github/workflows directory with a main.yml file. Update with code from main.yml.

And that’s it !!!!

You now have a self-updating profile readme in Github that updates once a day with your blog posts and TILs.