In order to use this project as a template repo, you should update a few things.
This file should contain most of the application config settings that need to be updated, such as site name, description, google analytics code, etc.
This file contains the domain you want to use for your Github Pages website.
Create a Github personal access token with public_repo access. Then create a secret environment on your Github repo named JEKYLL_PAT. This is referenced in the Github Actions.
Obviously this will be specific to your site. You can fetch the build status badge from Github Actions after the first run.