This article considers what 'minimal' might mean in the context of using minimal computing tools in the humanities classroom. Specifically, it recounts experiences teaching students to make websites using Jekyll, a popular minimal website generation tool, using different understandings of 'minimal.' In one, students were encouraged to use a Web browser to interact with Jekyll, but this introduced complications and did not provide students with detailed conceptual understanding. A later iteration of the course used more complex tooling (the text editor, Visual Studio Code) which proved challenging to humanities students unfamiliar with such digital tools but produced deeper conceptual understanding of the process of writing with code and for the Web. Ultimately, this paper concludes that minimal does not equate to simplistic but, more importantly, that, in the classroom, where and how 'minimal' is situated is both up to the instructor to determine and can greatly sway student learning outcomes.