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Integrations

Ghost Integration

Overview

Ghost is a powerful open-source publishing platform focused on professional content creators. Publish Owl connects to Ghost via its Admin API using JWT authentication, allowing you to create, update, and schedule articles with full support for featured images and SEO metadata.

Requirements

  • A Ghost site (self-hosted or Ghost(Pro))
  • Admin or Owner access to create custom integrations
  • Ghost Admin URL must be publicly accessible

Step 1: Create a Custom Integration

Ghost uses custom integrations to grant API access to external tools.

  1. Log in to your Ghost admin panel
  2. Go to Settings → Integrations
  3. Click Add custom integration
  4. Name it "Publish Owl" (or any name you prefer)
  5. Copy the Admin API Key — it will be in the format id:secret

Admin API Key Format

The key looks like: 6489abcd1234ef00abcd1234:abcdef1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef1234567890

The part before the colon is the key ID, and after is the secret. You need the full string including the colon.

Step 2: Add Your Ghost Site

  1. In Publish Owl, go to Sites
  2. Click + Add Site
  3. Enter a name for your site
  4. Select Ghost as the CMS type
  5. Fill in the Ghost fields:
    • Ghost Admin URL: Your Ghost URL (e.g., https://your-blog.ghost.io)
    • Admin API Key: The id:secret key from Step 1
  6. Click Save Site

Publish Owl will test the connection by querying your Ghost site info. If successful, your site is ready!

Supported Features

Article Fields

  • Title — Post title
  • Content — Full HTML body
  • Slug — Custom URL slug
  • Status — Published, draft, or scheduled
  • Featured Image — External URL (Ghost accepts external image URLs directly)
  • Meta Description — Ghost's native SEO meta description field

Scheduled Publishing

Ghost fully supports scheduled posts. When you use Publish Owl's scheduling features, articles are created with Ghost's "scheduled" status and published automatically at the specified time.

SEO Metadata

Ghost has built-in SEO support. When your workflow generates a meta description, Publish Owl sets Ghost's native meta_description field — no plugins needed.

Featured Images

Ghost accepts external image URLs for featured images, so Publish Owl passes the image URL directly without needing to upload. Configure image generation in your workflow settings:

  • AI Generation: Use GPT Image, Flux, Stable Diffusion, Ideogram, or other AI models
  • Stock Photos: Automatically find relevant images from Pexels, Unsplash, or Pixabay
  • Image Templates: Create custom branded images with the visual editor

Content Refresh

Publish Owl can update existing Ghost articles when using the content refresh feature. Both title and content are updated on your Ghost site. The slug is preserved to maintain SEO rankings.

Troubleshooting

"Invalid Ghost Admin API key format"

Make sure you're using the full Admin API key in id:secret format. The key should contain a colon separating the ID from the secret.

401 or authentication errors

Verify your Admin API key is correct. You can regenerate it in Ghost under Settings → Integrations → your integration.

Posts created without content

Ghost requires the ?source=html query parameter when sending HTML content. Publish Owl handles this automatically, but if you see empty posts, ensure you're on the latest version.

Connection timeout

Your Ghost Admin URL must be publicly accessible. If you're self-hosting Ghost behind a firewall or VPN, ensure the admin endpoint is reachable from the internet.

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