Ghost

Deploy a self-hosted Ghost 6 publication

Deploy Ghost, an open source publishing platform, on Clever Cloud.

Ghost is a publishing platform for websites, memberships and newsletters. This guide deploys Ghost on the Linux runtime with Mise, MySQL, Cellar S3-compatible object storage and an FS Bucket.

MySQL stores publications, users and settings. Cellar stores uploaded images, media and files through Ghost’s built-in S3 storage adapter. The FS Bucket persists themes and routing configuration uploaded from Ghost Admin.

Prepare the application

You need Git, jq, s3cmd or any other S3-compatible client, and a Clever Cloud account to follow this guide.

Create a directory and initialize its Git repository:

mkdir myGhost
cd myGhost
git init

This guide targets Ghost 6.60.0. To deploy another release, adapt GHOST_VERSION and use a Node.js version accepted by that release as described in the update section.

Mise is available on Clever Cloud. Create the following mise.toml file to download the selected Ghost release, install its production dependencies and define the commands used by the Linux runtime:

mise.toml

[tools]
node = "{{ env.CC_NODE_VERSION }}"

[tools."http:ghost"]
version = "{{ get_env(name='GHOST_VERSION', default='6.60.0') }}"
url = "https://registry.npmjs.org/ghost/-/ghost-{{ version }}.tgz"
strip_components = 1

[env]
database__client = "mysql"
database__connection__host = "{{ env.MYSQL_ADDON_HOST }}"
database__connection__port = "{{ env.MYSQL_ADDON_PORT }}"
database__connection__user = "{{ env.MYSQL_ADDON_USER }}"
database__connection__password = "{{ env.MYSQL_ADDON_PASSWORD }}"
database__connection__database = "{{ env.MYSQL_ADDON_DB }}"
logging__transports = '["stdout"]'
paths__contentPath = "{{ env.APP_HOME }}/content"
server__host = "0.0.0.0"
server__port = "{{ env.PORT }}"
storage__active = "S3Storage"
storage__S3Storage__bucket = "{{ env.GHOST_BUCKET }}"
storage__S3Storage__staticFileURLPrefix = "content/images"
storage__S3Storage__cdnUrl = "https://{{ env.CELLAR_ADDON_HOST }}/{{ env.GHOST_BUCKET }}"
storage__S3Storage__region = "default"
storage__S3Storage__endpoint = "https://{{ env.CELLAR_ADDON_HOST }}"
storage__S3Storage__forcePathStyle = "true"
storage__S3Storage__accessKeyId = "{{ env.CELLAR_ADDON_KEY_ID }}"
storage__S3Storage__secretAccessKey = "{{ env.CELLAR_ADDON_KEY_SECRET }}"

# Multipart uploads start at 10 MiB; this threshold can be increased up to 5 GiB
# Chunks can be increased from 5 MiB up to 5 GiB, with at most 10,000 per upload
storage__S3Storage__multipartUploadThresholdBytes = "10485760"
storage__S3Storage__multipartChunkSizeBytes = "5242880"
storage__media__adapter = "S3Storage"
storage__media__staticFileURLPrefix = "content/media"
storage__files__adapter = "S3Storage"
storage__files__staticFileURLPrefix = "content/files"

[tasks.build]
description = "Install Ghost and seed default content"
run = '''
set -euo pipefail
mkdir ghost
cp -a '{{ tools["http:ghost"].path }}/.' ghost/
mv ghost/content ghost-default-content
cd ghost
corepack enable pnpm
pnpm install --prod --frozen-lockfile
mkdir -p "$APP_HOME/content"
cp -a -n "$APP_HOME/ghost-default-content/." "$APP_HOME/content/"
'''

[tasks.run]
description = "Start Ghost"
dir = "ghost"
run = "node index.js"

The HTTP backend downloads and extracts the official npm package for the selected Ghost release. The build and run names are significant: the Linux runtime automatically uses these Mise tasks for its separate build and run phases. At the end of a successful build, the build task copies only missing default content to persistent storage. Ghost logs to standard output so they are available through Clever Cloud’s application logs.

Create the application and add-ons

Install Clever Tools, log in and create a Linux application with an alias used to link the add-ons:

npm i -g clever-tools
clever login

clever create -t linux -a myGhost

Clever Tools targets your personal organisation by default. To use another organisation, add --org ORGANISATION or -o ORGANISATION when you create or link the application.

You can display your application’s URL or add a custom domain. A custom domain also requires DNS configuration:

clever domain
clever domain add your.website.tld

Create and link MySQL 8.4, Cellar and FS Bucket add-ons:

clever addon create mysql-addon myGhostMySQL -p xxs_sml --addon-version 8.4 -l myGhost
clever addon create cellar-addon myGhostCellar -l myGhost
clever addon create fs-bucket myGhostContent -l myGhost

You can also create and link these resources from the Clever Cloud Console.

Mount the linked FS Bucket on the content directory. This path corresponds to $APP_HOME/content in the Mise configuration:

FS_BUCKET_HOST="$(clever env -F json | jq -er 'first(.fromAddons[] | select(.addonName == "myGhostContent") | .env[] | select(.name == "BUCKET_HOST") | .value)')"
clever env set CC_FS_BUCKET "/content:${FS_BUCKET_HOST}"
unset FS_BUCKET_HOST

This name-based lookup is unambiguous only if the add-on name is unique. If several linked add-ons use the same name, it selects the first one found. To target the resource explicitly, replace the first command with the add-on ID returned by clever addon create:

FS_BUCKET_HOST="$(clever addon env ADDON_ID -F json | jq -er '.BUCKET_HOST')"

Configure Cellar

Cellar bucket names are global within a cluster. Choose a unique name containing only lowercase letters, numbers, dots and hyphens:

export GHOST_BUCKET="your-unique-ghost-bucket"

Export only the linked Cellar variables to your current shell, then create the bucket:

source <(clever env -F shell | grep '^export CELLAR_ADDON_')

s3cmd --access_key="$CELLAR_ADDON_KEY_ID" \
  --secret_key="$CELLAR_ADDON_KEY_SECRET" \
  --host="$CELLAR_ADDON_HOST" \
  --host-bucket="$CELLAR_ADDON_HOST" \
  --ssl mb "s3://$GHOST_BUCKET"

Ghost returns direct URLs for uploaded assets, so visitors need public read access to bucket objects. Create a policy that allows reads without allowing public writes or bucket listing:

jq --null-input --arg bucket "$GHOST_BUCKET" '{
  Version: "2012-10-17",
  Statement: [{
    Sid: "PublicRead",
    Effect: "Allow",
    Principal: "*",
    Action: "s3:GetObject",
    Resource: "arn:aws:s3:::\($bucket)/*"
  }]
}' > ghost-bucket-policy.json

s3cmd --access_key="$CELLAR_ADDON_KEY_ID" \
  --secret_key="$CELLAR_ADDON_KEY_SECRET" \
  --host="$CELLAR_ADDON_HOST" \
  --host-bucket="$CELLAR_ADDON_HOST" \
  --ssl setpolicy ghost-bucket-policy.json "s3://$GHOST_BUCKET"

rm ghost-bucket-policy.json
unset CELLAR_ADDON_KEY_ID CELLAR_ADDON_KEY_SECRET CELLAR_ADDON_HOST

Keep GHOST_BUCKET exported for the next section.

Configure Ghost

Store the application domain in a shell variable, using either its .cleverapps.io domain or your custom domain:

export GHOST_URL="https://your-ghost-domain.example.com"

Configure the Ghost and Node.js versions, public URL and bucket name:

clever env set GHOST_VERSION 6.60.0
clever env set CC_NODE_VERSION 22.23.1

clever env set GHOST_BUCKET "$GHOST_BUCKET"
clever env set NODE_ENV production
clever env set url "$GHOST_URL"

The linked add-ons provide their credentials to the application. The mise.toml file maps them to Ghost’s nested configuration and sets the server address and port.

Configure email

Ghost requires transactional email for invitations, password resets, member sign-ins and Admin verification on new devices. Configure the SMTP service of your choice and replace every example value with your provider’s settings:

clever env set mail__transport SMTP
clever env set mail__from "Ghost <ghost@your.website.tld>"
clever env set mail__options__host smtp.example.com
clever env set mail__options__port 465
clever env set mail__options__secure true
clever env set mail__options__auth__user SMTP_USERNAME
clever env set mail__options__auth__pass A_STRONG_SMTP_PASSWORD

See the Ghost mail configuration for provider-specific options. Transactional email works with standard SMTP services, but Ghost’s built-in bulk newsletter delivery requires Mailgun.

If an SMTP service is not yet available during the initial configuration, you can temporarily disable Admin verification on new devices:

clever env set security__staffDeviceVerification false

Only use this setting while configuring the application. Before using Ghost in production, configure SMTP and re-enable device verification:

clever env set security__staffDeviceVerification true
clever restart

Deploy Ghost

Commit the deployment configuration and deploy the application:

git add mise.toml
git commit -m "First deploy"

clever deploy

Open the application and append /ghost to its URL to create the publication owner account:

clever open

The public publication is available from the application URL, while Admin is available at https://your-ghost-domain.example.com/ghost.

Update Ghost

Export your content from Ghost Admin and make sure you have a recent MySQL backup before updating. Check the engines.node requirement of the Ghost release you want to use, then update both version variables when necessary. For example:

clever env set GHOST_VERSION 6.60.0
clever env set CC_NODE_VERSION 22.23.1
clever restart --without-cache

The rebuild downloads the selected release and installs dependencies for the configured Node.js version. Ghost applies pending MySQL migrations when the new version starts.

Learn more

Ghost documentation

Configure and manage a Ghost publication

Linux application runtime

Configure and deploy any application

MySQL

Explore managed MySQL databases

Cellar

Explore S3-compatible object storage

FS Bucket

Persist files across deployments

Last updated on August 26, 2026

Did this documentation help you ?

Fluentd Hexo