Ghost GitOps Publishing

Draft, update, and publish Ghost posts via a GitOps Markdown workflow.

Ghost gives you the blogging platform. Git gives you version control, history, branches, reviews, cloud pipelines.

ghostpost glues them together.

You keep your post as a Markdown file with front-matter. One command turns it into a Ghost draft—or updates an existing post.

Features

Front-matter driven

Define title, slug, tags, status, excerpt, schedule, visibility, authors, templates, and more. ghostpost reads and writes the post_id for you.

Idempotent updates

ghostpost fetches the current updated_at lock and issues a PUT. Your edits replace the previous version so you are always in sync.

Open in online CMS editor after publishing

ghostpost publish -f post.md --editor

Opens your browser at /ghost/#/editor/post/{post_id}

Why ghostpost

What if you could manage your blog like code?

Version control

• Track every edit in git log
• Run spell-check in CI
• Review via pull requests

Stateless deploys

• No local state
• The post_id lives in your front-matter
• Everything self-contained in the .md article

Automatic images

• Reference local image paths
• ghostpost uploads and updates URLs

Zero dependencies

• One static Go binary for macOS, Linux, Windows

Setup

Create ~/.ghostpost/config.yaml (or keep it in the repo):

api_url:   https://your-site.ghost.io/ghost/api/admin/
admin_jwt: 123abc456def:deadbeefcafef00d...   # Admin key or signed JWT

• You can paste the raw Admin API key; ghostpost will auto-sign it.
• The trailing slash in api_url is required.

Your first post

welcome.md:

---
title: Welcome to Focused Systems
slug: welcome-to-focused-systems
custom_excerpt: Insights, guides, and updates on technology and workflows
tags:
  - DevOps
  - CI/CD
feature_image: assets/hero.png      # relative path or URL to your cover image
status: draft                       # draft | published | scheduled
published_at: 2025-06-15T09:00:00Z  # ISO timestamp for scheduling (optional)
visibility: public                  # public | members | paid | specific
tiers:
  - free                            # which paid tiers can see this (optional)
featured: false                     # show as “featured” in your theme?
authors:
  - rodchristiansen                 # Ghost user slugs
custom_template: post               # choose a custom template (optional)
post_id: ""                         # filled in by ghostpost after first publish
hash: ""                            # SHA256 of body, managed by ghostpost
---

## Hello world

Welcome to my very first post—managed entirely via GitOps!

Publish:

ghostpost publish -f welcome.md

ghostpost will:

1. Upload any local images it finds.
2. Convert Markdown → HTML with Goldmark.
3. Create the post in Ghost.
4. Write the returned post_id (and hash) back into the front-matter.

Your file now contains:

post_id: 681fcffa6cf6ba0001ccf0e9
hash:    67c7ab9c59830557c52d5fd29a0bbf86710c1fd77bc4eb429db170a6417f583a

Commit that change—now the ID and content hash track with your content.

Fix a typo

Edit the file, run the same command again.

ghostpost:

• Pulls the current updated_at timestamp.
• Sends a PUT /posts/{id} with that lock.
• Ghost patches the post.

Jump straight to the editor

ghostpost publish -f welcome.md --editor

Your browser opens: https://your-site.ghost.io/ghost/#/editor/post/681fcffa6cf6ba0001ccf0e9

Front-matter keys

Key	Purpose
title	Post title
slug	URL slug (optional)
tags	Array or YAML list
feature_image	Path or URL
status	draft, published, scheduled
published_at	ISO date string for scheduling
visibility	public, members, paid, specific
tiers	Array of paid tiers (for specific)
featured	true/false to feature the post
custom_excerpt	Manual excerpt
authors	Array of author slugs
custom_template	Template name (e.g. post)
post_id	Populated by ghostpost after first push
hash	SHA256 of Markdown body, for no-change detection

CI example

name: Publish
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
    paths: ["posts/**/*.md"]

jobs:
  ghost:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-go@v5
        with:
          go-version: '1.24.2'
      - run: go install github.com/rodchristiansen/ghost-gitops-publishing/cmd/ghostpost@latest
      - run: |
          for f in posts/*.md; do
            ghostpost publish -f "$f"
          done
        env:
          GHOST_API_URL:   ${{ secrets.GHOST_API_URL }}
          GHOST_ADMIN_JWT: ${{ secrets.GHOST_ADMIN_JWT }}

Contributing

Pull requests and issues welcome!

• Run go vet ./... and go test ./... before pushing.
• Keep sentences short; write like a friend who figured something out.

License

MIT. See the LICENSE file.

Inspiration

GhostPost was inspired by the “Articles as Code” idea from post2ghost