Layout
You specify the layout for a page in its front matter. Just the Docs has a default layout with a sidebar, used for almost all pages in the theme docs, and a minimal layout that omits the sidebar.
The layout concept
See the Jekyll docs page about layouts for an explanation of the general idea of layouts and how to specify them.
You can use Jekyll’s front matter defaults to specify the same layout for many pages.
The default layout
This page uses the default layout. This site configures layout: default as a front matter default value for all pages in the docs directory.
The default layout of Just the Docs is a responsive layout: on medium and larger width displays, it displays a sidebar, including a navigation panel; on smaller width displays, the sidebar is automatically hidden under a button.
All pages except top-level pages automatically have a list of so-called breadcrumbs: links to their parent pages and any higher-level ancestors. They show the breadcrumbs above the main content of the page.
Each page that has child pages generally has a list of links to those pages (you can suppress it by has_toc: false in the front matter). It shows the list as a table of contents below the main content.
The minimal layout
A child and grandchild page of this page use the minimal layout. This differs from the default layout by omitting the sidebar—and thereby also the navigation panel. To navigate between pages with the minimal layout, you can use the breadcrumbs and the tables of contents.
Selectively hiding or showing the sidebar
Jekyll’s front matter defaults can be used to apply the minimal layout for many pages. But there are also other variables that can control the page layout. In _config.yml, you can set nav_enabled: false to disable the sidebar navigation panel across the entire site. This can then be selectively enabled on a page-by-page basis by assigning the nav_enabled: true page front matter variable. For instance, this could be used to enable sidebar navigation on a home page while all other pages have sidebar navigation disabled.
---
layout: default
title: Home
nav_enabled: true
---
Other layouts
Just the Docs has further layouts: about, home, page, and post. Currently, they are all based on the default layout. See the Jekyll docs about inheritance for how to customize them.