Mermaid is a simple markdown-like script language for generating charts from text via javascript. I would like to show you how you can enable rendering of mermaid diagrams without plugin in your Jekyll blog/site which is useful for Github pages.

Page Template

Create a file mermaid.html in _include directory with the following content:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/mermaid@8.9.3/dist/mermaid.min.js"></script>
<script>
  $(document).ready(function () {
    mermaid.initialize({
      startOnLoad:true,
      theme: "default",
    });
    window.mermaid.init(undefined, document.querySelectorAll('.language-mermaid'));
  });
</script>

Add the following content to the end of file footer-scripts.html in directory _include.

 
  <script src="https://unpkg.com/mermaid@8.9.3/dist/mermaid.min.js"></script>
<script>
  $(document).ready(function () {
    mermaid.initialize({
      startOnLoad:true,
      theme: "default",
    });
    window.mermaid.init(undefined, document.querySelectorAll('.language-mermaid'));
  });
</script>
 

Enable mermaid rendering

With mermaid: true you can now enable the rendering of mermaid diagrams in your post or page. This has the advantage that the relatively large mermaid.min.js is only loaded when it is needed.

Writing a mermaid diagram

You can now write a mermaid diagram like this in your site or posts.

```mermaid
graph TD;
    A-->B;
    A-->C;
    B-->D;
    C-->D;
```  

Which are rendered automatically

graph TD;
    A-->B;
    A-->C;
    B-->D;
    C-->D;