Ghost CLI

ghost-cli — Ghost CMS from the Terminal

Manage content on a Ghost CMS site: view site info, list and create posts and pages, manage tags — all via the Ghost Admin API (v5/v6).

Setup

1. Get your Admin API key from Ghost Admin → Settings → Advanced → Integrations (or Ghost Admin → Integrations). Create a custom integration to get a key in id:secret format.
2. Set these environment variables:

export GHOST_URL="https://your-ghost-site.com"     # your Ghost site URL
export GHOST_ADMIN_KEY="your-id:your-secret"        # from Ghost Admin → Integrations

--help and --dry-run work without credentials (lazy auth).

Essential Commands

site — Get site information

ghost-cli site                               # show site title, URL, description
ghost-cli --json site                        # machine-readable JSON
ghost-cli --dry-run site                     # preview without API call

Shows: site title, URL, description.

posts — List blog posts

ghost-cli posts                              # 20 most recent posts
ghost-cli posts --limit 50                   # more results
ghost-cli posts --status published           # only published posts
ghost-cli posts --status draft               # only draft posts
ghost-cli posts --status scheduled           # only scheduled posts
ghost-cli posts --limit 10 --json            # 10 most recent as JSON

Shows: title, status, slug, and last-updated date for each post.

create-post — Create a new blog post

ghost-cli create-post --title "My First Post"                               # draft, no HTML
ghost-cli create-post --title "Hello World" --html "<p>Hello!</p>"          # with HTML content
ghost-cli create-post --title "Ready" --html "<p>Published</p>" --status published  # publish immediately
ghost-cli create-post --title "Scheduled" --html "<p>Later</p>" --status scheduled  # schedule
ghost-cli create-post --title "Custom Slug" --slug "my-custom-url"          # custom URL slug
ghost-cli create-post --title "Draft" --dry-run                             # preview without creating

Creates the post and returns its title, slug, and status.

pages — List pages

ghost-cli pages                              # 20 most recent pages
ghost-cli pages --limit 50                   # more results
ghost-cli pages --json                       # machine-readable JSON

Shows: title, status, slug, and last-updated date for each page.

tags — List tags

ghost-cli tags                               # 50 tags with post counts
ghost-cli tags --limit 100                   # more results
ghost-cli tags --json                        # machine-readable JSON

Shows: tag name, slug, and number of posts using each tag.

Global Flags

These flags work anywhere in the command — before or after the subcommand:

ghost-cli --json posts                       # JSON output
ghost-cli posts --json                       # same result, after subcommand
ghost-cli --dry-run create-post --title "Test"  # preview without API call
ghost-cli --quiet posts                      # suppress diagnostic output
ghost-cli --verbose site                     # verbose logging

Known Gotchas

• Admin API key format — The GHOST_ADMIN_KEY must be in id:secret format (e.g. 644a4c1a2b3c4d5e6f7g8h9i:abcd1234efgh5678ijkl9012). This is the format Ghost generates when you create a Custom Integration. A plain token or JWT will not work.
• JWT token auto-generated — The CLI generates a short-lived JWT (HS256, 5-minute expiry) internally from the Admin API key on each request. You don't need to create or manage JWT tokens yourself.
• 5-minute JWT window — Each JWT is valid for 300 seconds (5 minutes). If your system clock is significantly skewed, requests may fail. Ensure NTP is synced.
• API version v6 — The CLI sends Accept-Version: v6.0 on all requests, targeting the Ghost Admin API v6. Response shapes follow the v6 spec. May also work against v5 sites.
• HTML content format — Post and page content must be provided as raw HTML strings via --html. Markdown is not auto-converted. If you write in Markdown, convert it to HTML first (e.g. with a markdown-to-html tool).
• No update or delete commands — The current CLI supports listing and creating posts/pages/tags, but does not include update or delete operations. Use the Ghost Admin UI or direct API calls for those.
• No tag creation via CLI — Tag listing works, but create-tag is not exposed as a subcommand. The GhostClient class has a create_tag method internally but it is not wired to a CLI command.
• Rate limiting — Ghost Admin API enforces rate limits. For heavy operations, stagger your requests.
• Error output — API errors (4xx/5xx) include the response body in the error message for debugging. Auth errors (401/403) explicitly tell you to check GHOST_ADMIN_KEY.

References

• scripts/ghost-cli — The CLI binary. Built following the cli-builder patterns: non-interactive, --json, --dry-run, --quiet, --verbose, dual-output via emit(), lazy auth, structured logging.
• Ghost Admin API Docs — Official Ghost Admin API documentation.
• Ghost Integrations — How to create Custom Integrations and get your Admin API key.