GoWDB-Template

A template for a game database website: the site behind GoW5DB (Gears 5), with the Gears 5 content taken out, so the same site can be made for any game in a few minutes. Made for the Gears of War Databases (one site per game), but nothing in it is tied to Gears.

It's a Jekyll site. GitHub Pages builds and hosts it for free: you edit YAML files and push, and the site updates by itself.

Make a site for a game

1. Use this template (the green button on GitHub) → name the repository, e.g. GoW4DB.
2. Settings → Pages → Source: GitHub Actions. The first deploy runs on the next push.
3. _config.yml: the game block (name, release date, developer, publisher), title, short_name, description, tagline, credits and repository_url.
4. _config.yml's nav_groups: the sections your game has (see below).
5. _data/*.yml: replace the example entries with the game's. Images go in images/<section>/<slug>.png (or .jpg).

The site is then at https://<owner>.github.io/<repository>/.

Sections

Every section is one entry in nav_groups (the navbar and the home page cards), one page and, usually, one data file. Most use the list layout, which turns _data/<section>.yml's list into cards or a table:

# weapons/index.html
---
title: Weapons
layout: list
---

# _data/weapons.yml
list:
  - { name: "Lancer Assault Rifle", slug: "lancer", badge: "Assault Rifle", desc: "Chainsaw bayonet. {60} rounds." }

The page's front matter can add:

• group_by: faction splits the list into headings by that field; groups: in the data file sets their order and titles.
• columns: [{ key: health, label: Health }] shows a table instead of cards, one column per field.
• data: guns reads _data/guns.yml instead of the folder's name.
• images: guns and image_ext: jpg say where the images are: images/<images>/<slug>.<image_ext>. Missing images just hide.
• intro: "..." is text under the title; the data file's intro: does the same.
• coming_soon: true (with layout: section) greys the section out in the menu and on the home page, with a "Coming soon" tip.

In a description, {60} is highlighted, and [[weapons:lancer]] links to that entry of another list page, showing its name.

A new section: add its folder with an index.html like the one above, its _data/<name>.yml, and its line in nav_groups. A page that needs more than a list (calculators, build tools, maps with markers) can be any HTML page using layout: default: GoW5DB's classes, Fabricator, map and build tools are examples to copy from.

What to start with, per game

The template starts with sections almost every Gears game has: Characters, Weapons, Enemies, Maps, Gamemodes, plus Executions and Skins as coming soon. Some games add their own:

• Gears of War, 2, 3, Judgment: characters, weapons, maps, gamemodes; Horde from 2 (Horde 2.0 with fortifications in 3), Beast in 3, Overrun and its classes in Judgment.
• Gears of War 4 and Gears 5: Horde classes with skill cards, the Fabricator; Gears 5 adds Escape, marks, the Tour of Duty and Iron.
• Gears Tactics: a turn-based strategy game, no versus: classes (Support, Heavy, Sniper, Scout, Vanguard) with skill trees, heroes and recruits, weapon mods and armor, missions. Swap the sections for those.
• Gears of War: E-Day: Versus (Team Deathmatch, Conquest, Demolition, Crucible) and Horde Siege (three squads on one map), weapon mods, unlocks earned by playing.

Reference screenshots

Each database can keep the screenshots its data came from in a separate repository, made from GoWDB-Reference-Template, as its ref/ submodule:

git submodule add https://github.com/<owner>/<repository>-Reference.git ref

The site doesn't need it to build (ref/ is excluded and the deploy doesn't fetch it). The Reference update workflow moves ref/ to that repository's newest commit every day at 04:00 UTC (or by hand: Actions → Reference update → Run workflow) and redeploys the site when it moved; without a ref/ submodule it does nothing.

Running it locally

Needs Ruby (3.3, like the deploy workflow) and Bundler:

bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve

Then open http://localhost:4000; Jekyll rebuilds when you save. On Windows, the reference repository's start-jekyll.bat does the same and also fills in the revision line in the header.

What else is in here

• Themes: the Theme button recolors the site; add your own in _data/themes/ (its README explains how) and list them in _config.yml's theme_order.
• Revision line: which commit the site was built from, in the footer on GitHub Pages builds and in the header's top left corner locally (_plugins/last_commit.rb).
• Export this page: the footer's button downloads the page as one HTML file that works offline.
• Deploy: .github/workflows/deploy.yml builds and publishes on every push to main.

License

Copyright (C) 2026 Ryan Turner (TheSCREWEDSoftware) and the GoW5DB contributors.

The site's code (templates, styles, scripts and data files written for it) is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. See LICENSE. Sites made from this template are under the same license; the games' names, images and other content belong to their owners and are not covered by it.

Made with

Made with the help of Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant: written and reviewed together with it, then tested and published by Ryan Turner (TheSCREWEDSoftware).