Publishing your post

1. Preparation#

Open https://github.com/HarvardMadSys/cs2680-blog and press Fork. Then clone the fork you just made and point upstream at the original, so you can pull in other people’s posts later:

git clone [email protected]:<your-github-username>/cs2680-blog.git
cd cs2680-blog
git remote add upstream [email protected]:HarvardMadSys/cs2680-blog.git

origin is now your fork, which you can push to; upstream is the course repository, which you cannot.

You need Hugo, v0.164.0 or newer, to preview your post: (for other operating systems, please see Hugo installation guide.)

brew install hugo          # macOS
sudo snap install hugo     # Linux
hugo version               # should print "extended"

2. Start writing your post#

Start from an up-to-date main, then branch. (Put assignment1 or assignment5 in place of assignment3 everywhere for those.)

git fetch upstream
git checkout -b assignment3/<your-name> upstream/main
hugo new content --kind assignment3 2026/assignment3/<your-name>/index.md

That gives you a new folder, where you can put the post file and the supplementary files:

content/2026/assignment3/junchengyang/
├── index.md
└── throughput.svg        →  ![Throughput](throughput.svg)

If your post doesn’t have figures, a single <your-name>.md in the assignment folder works the same way.

3. Edit the metadata block#

Hugo creates the file with a metadata block at the top. Everything between the --- lines is metadata:

---
title: "Cutting agent cost by 60% without losing task success rate"
date: 2026-09-28
authors: ["Juncheng Yang"]
summary: "With a good management in context, the agent is able to avoid a lot of costs, while also preserving the task success rate."
tags: ["prompt-compression", "caching"]
draft: true
---

About cover. It is optional, but a post with one stands out on a page of eighty. For an Assignment 1 showcase it should be a screenshot of your interface — that is the fastest way to tell a reader what your app looks like before they click.

Hand it a full-size screenshot; it is resized for you. It appears in two places and is treated differently in each: whole at the top of your post, and cropped to 16:9 for the thumbnail on the assignment page. Anything roughly landscape survives that crop; a tall portrait screenshot will lose its top and bottom, so if you have one, put it in the body of your post instead and leave cover out.

Because the cover already appears at the top of your post, do not also embed it in the first paragraph — it would show twice.

4. Write the post#

Just use the standard Markdown format. On top of that, we also have some enhanced features:

• Code highlighting.

  ```python
  def budget(messages: list[Message]) -> int:
      return sum(len(m.content) for m in messages) // 4
  ```
  

• Math. Inline as $p_{99}$ and display as $$ ... $$ (Rendered with KaTeX).

• Long output: A full trace or a profile dump goes in a collapsed block so it does not bury the argument:

  {{<collapse summary="Full profiler output">}}
  ...paste it here...
  {{</collapse>}}
  

• Figures: Place these beside index.md in your post folder and reference them by file name. Give every one of them alt text and a caption.

5. Figures and file sizes#

For figures, it is recommended to place them in the same directory as the markdown file. Svg (for diagrams) and webp (for photos) are preferred formats

Use SVG for anything drawn (plots, diagrams, architecture sketches) to stay sharp at any zoom.

Use WebP for anything photographed or captured (screenshots, photos). You can easily convert your files via the command line:

cwebp -q 80 screenshot.png -o cover.webp      # brew install webp
magick screenshot.png -quality 80 cover.webp  # or ImageMagick

Keep your entire post folder under 10 MB. Please keep in mind:

• Compress screenshots before committing.
• No video files. Upload videos to YouTube, Drive, or Panopto, and link to them.
• No datasets, model weights, logs, or node_modules.

6. Preview#

To preview, please execute the following command in the terminal at the root directory of this repo.

hugo server -D

-D includes drafts, so you can see your own post before it is published. If there is no errors displayed, open http://localhost:1313 to preview. Pages will be reloaded as you save.

7. Open the pull request#

Push the branch to your own fork:

git add content/2026/assignment3/<your-name>
git commit -m "Assignment3(<your name>): <your title>"
git push -u origin assignment3/<your-name>

GitHub will display a link to open your pull request. Ensure your pull request is targeting the main branch of HarvardMadSys/cs2680-blog, and that it only contains changes to your own post folder. Before submitting, verify that:

• draft is false;
• summary, authors, date and tags are filled in;
• your figures are SVG or WebP, and the post folder is under about 2 MB;
• hugo server shows no error, and your post looks right;
• your post contains only your own work, and discloses AI use as the course policy requires.

A TF will review the pull request. Once it is merged, your post will be live here.

If the review takes a while and other posts land first, update your branch rather than opening a new pull request:

git fetch upstream
git rebase upstream/main
git push --force-with-lease

Notes#

Your post is public. Do not leak API keys, private endpoints, or anything private.

Only edit your own post. A pull request should only touch your own post and nothing else.

Fixes after the deadline are fine. Feel free to open another pull request if you have typos, a broken figure, or want to add further clarification. However, grading is based on the state of your post at the deadline, so any subsequent rewrites will not affect your score.

The assignment specs, the grading, and the late-day policy are on the course site.