Ghost Documentation

1. Project Overview & Quickstart (TryGhost/Ghost) Copy Chapter

File: README.md Copy Chapter

[!NOTE]
Love open source? We're hiring! Ghost is looking staff engineers to join the team and work with us full-time

The easiest way to get a production instance deployed is with our official Ghost(Pro) managed service. It takes about 2 minutes to launch a new site with worldwide CDN, backups, security and maintenance all done for you.

For most people this ends up being the best value option because of how much time it saves — and 100% of revenue goes to the Ghost Foundation; funding the maintenance and further development of the project itself. So you’ll be supporting open source software and getting a great service!

Quickstart install

If you want to run your own instance of Ghost, in most cases the best way is to use our CLI tool

npm install ghost-cli -g

Then, if installing locally add the local flag to get up and running in under a minute - Local install docs

ghost install local

or on a server run the full install, including automatic SSL setup using LetsEncrypt - Production install docs

ghost install

Check out our official documentation for more information about our recommended hosting stack & properly upgrading Ghost, plus everything you need to develop your own Ghost themes or work with our API.

Contributors & advanced developers Copy Section

To contribute to Ghost, start with the
contributing guide. To work on the monorepo, see the
codebase documentation.

Ghost sponsors

A big thanks to our sponsors and partners who make Ghost possible. If you're interested in sponsoring Ghost and supporting the project, please check out our profile on GitHub sponsors :heart:

DigitalOcean • Fastly • Tinybird • BairesDev

Getting help

Everyone can get help and support from a large community of developers over on the Ghost forum. Ghost(Pro) customers have access to 24/7 email support.

To stay up to date with all the latest news and product updates, make sure you subscribe to our changelog newsletter — or follow us on Twitter, if you prefer your updates bite-sized and facetious. :saxophone::turtle:

License & trademark

Copyright (c) 2013-2026 Ghost Foundation - Released under the MIT license.
Ghost and the Ghost Logo are trademarks of Ghost Foundation Ltd. Please see our trademark policy for info on acceptable usage.

File: docs/README.md Copy Chapter

Ghost Codebase Documentation

Welcome to the Ghost codebase documentation! These docs are for anyone wanting
to work on the Ghost codebase. For self-hosting, themes, or using Ghost APIs,
see the official Ghost documentation.

Quick Start Copy Chapter

With the prerequisites
installed:

git clone --recurse-submodules [email protected]:TryGhost/Ghost.git
cd Ghost

pnpm setup
pnpm dev

Ghost will be available at:

• Main site: http://localhost:2368
• Admin panel: http://localhost:2368/ghost/
• Development email: http://localhost:8025

pnpm dev also starts the supporting MySQL and Redis containers, plus Admin and
Portal development watchers.

For more detail, see the
development setup guide including first-run
setup, development variants, and troubleshooting.

Repository Structure Copy Chapter

Ghost/
├── apps/              # Admin and public frontend apps
│   ├── admin/          # React Admin
│   ├── ember-admin/    # Legacy Ember Admin
│   ├── portal/         # Member Portal
│   ├── comments-ui/    # Comments
│   └── shade/          # Admin design system
├── ghost/core/        # Ghost server and frontend rendering
│   ├── core/server/    # APIs, models, and services
│   ├── core/frontend/  # Theme rendering and helpers
│   ├── content/        # Default themes, adapters, and local content
│   └── test/           # Server tests
├── koenig/            # Editor and content-format packages
├── packages/          # Shared libraries and adapter contracts
├── configs/           # Shared build, lint, test, and TypeScript config
├── e2e/               # Browser end-to-end tests
├── docker/            # Local development containers and services
└── scripts/           # Repository tooling

pnpm links the workspaces and Nx runs their tasks in dependency order. For more
detail, see the monorepo structure guide. The
configuration guide explains how Ghost Core loads
defaults, local overrides, environment variables, and secrets. The
authentication guide maps staff, integration, and
member authentication to the current codebase.

Contributing a change Copy Chapter

Before contributing, please read:

1. Contributing Guide - Guidelines for contributions
2. Code of Conduct - Community standards

To contribute or add translations, see
Translating Ghost. For more detail on
adding translatable product copy, see the
internationalization guide.

Guides Copy Chapter

Codebase guides explain how the main systems fit together:

• Authentication
• Configuration
• Database structure
• Internal caching
• Jobs system
• Post analytics
• Site UUID
• Stripe flows
• Theme compatibility

Practice and contributor guides explain how to make and verify changes:

• API design
• Database migrations
• Browser E2E testing
• Codebase documentation
• Email testing
• Error handling
• Internationalization
• Performance testing
• Testing development URLs and devices

Reference guides provide tables and other information to look up while working
on Ghost:

• Node.js compatibility

Finding Issues to Work On Copy Section

• Good First Issues - Great for newcomers
• Help Wanted - Issues that need attention

Development Workflow Copy Section

1. Clone the repository
2. Create a branch for your changes
3. Make your changes and write tests
4. Run pnpm check to ensure everything works
5. Commit following our commit message conventions
6. Submit a pull request to the main branch

For more detail, see the contribution workflow.

Testing Copy Section

Use pnpm check as the default one-stop command for linting and testing. Add
tests at the closest layer to the behavior you changed. Browser end-to-end tests
and Ember Admin tests run separately from pnpm check.

For more detail, see the testing guide including how
to choose a test suite, run focused tests, and use the separate browser and
Ember Admin test lanes.

Shipping Copy Section

Admin uses continuous delivery on Ghost(Pro), so every commit to main can ship
before the next server release. Keep Admin compatible with server versions that
are still live. Public Ghost releases include Admin and the server every
Tuesday.

For more detail, see the shipping guide including
when changes reach Ghost(Pro), self-hosted installs, npm, jsDelivr, and the
Docker Official Image.

Additional Resources Copy Chapter

• Official Documentation - User and developer docs
• Ghost Forum - Community support and discussions
• API Documentation - Content and Admin API reference
• Theme Documentation - Theme development

Getting Help Copy Chapter

• Forum: forum.ghost.org
• Support: See SUPPORT.md
• Issues: GitHub Issues

License Copy Chapter

Ghost is open source software licensed under the MIT License.

2. Official Technical Reference & Guides (TryGhost/docs) Copy Chapter

Ghost Docs

This repository contains the official developer documentation for
Ghost, published at
docs.ghost.org.

Local development Copy Chapter

Local previews require a Node.js version supported by package.json.
Enable pnpm through Corepack and install the repository dependencies:

corepack enable pnpm
pnpm install
pnpm dev

The preview is available at http://localhost:3000 by default.

Validation Copy Chapter

Run the documentation checks before opening a pull request:

pnpm lint
pnpm test
pnpm a11y

These checks currently expose known findings on main. Compare your results
with main and avoid introducing additional failures.

See the contribution guide for the repository
workflow.

Deployment Copy Chapter

The Mintlify GitHub App creates pull request previews. Merging to main
triggers deployment to docs.ghost.org; monitor the
Mintlify Deployment check for the result.

Copyright & License Copy Chapter

Copyright (c) 2013-2026 Ghost Foundation. All rights reserved.

This code is considered closed-source and not for distribution. There is no
open source license associated with this project.