Weissman Lab Website

Local testing

bundle exec jekyll serve

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Adding or updating a person

People and images are managed through two external sources that are synced into the repo automatically each Monday. You can also trigger a sync manually at any time.

• People spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-Eju9h1XovEBoBv0DGpxh92GYsZ8bzGkxRdRgUb7hvg
• Portrait images folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Je52Gv36cGsAH1q1Xsj7hfnwu5gegTLh

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Step 1 — Add a row to the spreadsheet

Open the people spreadsheet and add a row with the following columns:

Column	Description	Example
name	Full name as it should appear on the site	John Doe
pos	Position — must match exactly one of the values below	Post-doc
email	Whitehead/MIT email	jdoe@wi.mit.edu
id	CamelCase identifier — used to match portrait images	JohnDoe
alum	false for current members, true for alumni	false
now	Current role (alumni only) — format: Title | Institution	Assistant Professor | Harvard University

Valid pos values (spelling and capitalization must match exactly):

pos value	Displayed as
Principal Investigator	Principal Investigator
Lab Manager	Lab Manager
Administrative Lab Manager	Administrative Lab Manager
Administrative Assistant	Administrative Assistant
Lab Assistant	Lab Assistant
Visiting Scientist	Visiting Scientist
Post-doc	Postdoctoral Fellow
Grad student	Graduate Student
PhD Student	PhD Student
Masters Student	Masters Student
Technician	Research Technician
Software Engineer	Software Engineer
Undergrad	Undergraduate Student

The id field is how the site links a person to their portrait. It must be unique. The convention is FirstLast in CamelCase (e.g., JohnDoe, JaneDoe).

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Step 2 — Upload a portrait image

Upload the portrait to the images folder on Google Drive.

• Filename must match the person's id exactly, e.g. JohnDoe.jpg
• .jpg or .png are both fine — the script converts everything to JPEG
• Any resolution is fine — images are automatically resized to a max of 1200px on the longest side and kept under 3MB

Members without a portrait still appear on the site, but as a text-only list beneath the photo grid rather than as a photo card.

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Step 3 — Sync to the website

The site re-syncs from the spreadsheet and Drive folder every Monday at 6am UTC via GitHub Actions. To sync immediately:

1. Go to the Actions tab on GitHub
2. Click Run workflow

Or run locally (requires the website conda environment):

# Sync everything
conda run -n website python scripts/update_data.py

# Sync only people data
conda run -n website python scripts/update_data.py --people

# Sync only portrait images
conda run -n website python scripts/update_data.py --images

# Sync only publications
conda run -n website python scripts/update_data.py --publications

The script commits changes to _data/people.yml, _data/publications.yml, and assets/img/people/ automatically when run via GitHub Actions.

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Marking someone as an alumnus

In the spreadsheet, change their alum column from false to true and fill in the now column with their current position in the format Title | Institution. They will move from the current members section to the alumni list on the next sync.

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Developer setup

Prerequisites

• Ruby + Bundler (for Jekyll local preview)
• Miniconda or Anaconda (for the data sync script)

Create the conda environment

conda env create -f environment.yml

This creates the website environment with all dependencies needed to run scripts/update_data.py.

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Google Drive authentication (one-time setup)

The image sync uses the Google Drive API with OAuth. This requires a credentials file and a one-time browser login. The credentials file is not in the repo — ask a maintainer for it or follow the steps below to create your own.

Option A — Get credentials from a maintainer

1. Ask a current maintainer for scripts/drive_credentials.json
2. Place it at scripts/drive_credentials.json in the repo root (it is gitignored)
3. Run the script once to authenticate:

   conda run -n website python scripts/update_data.py --images

4. A browser window will open. Log in with a Google account that has access to the Drive folder and click Allow
5. The script will create scripts/drive_token.json — this caches your login for all future runs

Option B — Create your own credentials from scratch

1. Go to console.cloud.google.com and create a new project (or select an existing one)
2. In the left sidebar, go to APIs & Services → Library, search for Google Drive API, and click Enable
3. Go to APIs & Services → OAuth consent screen
   • User type: External
   • Fill in the app name (e.g. Weissman Lab Site) and your email, then save
   • Under Test users, click Add users and add the Google account you will authenticate with
4. Go to APIs & Services → Credentials → Create Credentials → OAuth client ID
   • Application type: Desktop app
   • Click Create, then Download JSON
5. Save the downloaded file as scripts/drive_credentials.json
6. Run the script to authenticate:

   conda run -n website python scripts/update_data.py --images

7. A browser window will open. Log in with the Google account you added as a test user and click Allow
8. scripts/drive_token.json is created — your login is now cached

Neither scripts/drive_credentials.json nor scripts/drive_token.json should ever be committed. Both are listed in .gitignore.

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Updating the GitHub Actions secret

GitHub Actions needs the Drive token to sync images in CI. After generating scripts/drive_token.json locally:

1. Copy the full contents of scripts/drive_token.json
2. Go to the repo on GitHub → Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions
3. Find the secret named GOOGLE_DRIVE_TOKEN and click Update
4. Paste the contents and save

The token contains a refresh token that keeps it valid indefinitely, but if it ever stops working (e.g. after revoking access in your Google account), repeat the local auth steps above and update the secret again.