Gatsby Ghost Novela Starter is a Gatsby boilerplate that turns a headless Ghost CMS blog into a fast, static website using the Novela theme design. This starter replaces Ghost's Handlebars front-end with a React-based static site and is maintained by the Draftbox team.
What is the Gatsby Ghost Novela Starter?
The Gatsby Ghost Novela Starter is a Gatsby starter that sources all blog content from a headless Ghost CMS via the Ghost Content API and produces a static blog styled with Narrative's Novela theme. You give it your Ghost installation's API URL and content API key, and it generates a fully static site ready for deployment. It is a front-end replacement for the Ghost Handlebars engine and is used by Draftbox for its own service.
Key Features
- Novela theme — Ships with the Novela design by Narrative, ported from the gatsby-theme-novela project, giving the blog a modern magazine-style look.
- SEO optimized — Uses site title, description, share image width, and share image height fields in siteConfig.js to set meta tags for search engines and social sharing.
- Gatsby images — Includes responsive image handling through Gatsby's image plugin, so images are optimized and lazy-loaded.
- RSS Feed and Sitemap — Automatically generates rss.xml and sitemap.xml for the blog, with links to both in the footer navigation.
- AMP Pages — Built-in AMP support creates accelerated mobile pages for blog posts.
- Contact and Subscribe forms — Provides a contact widget and a subscribe widget, each with configurable title and success message in siteConfig.js.
- Integrations — Supports Google Analytics, Segment, and Disqus as listed features.
- Styled 404 page and social sharing — Includes a themed 404 page and social sharing buttons for posts.
Who should use the Gatsby Ghost Novela Starter?
The starter is aimed at developers and site owners who already use Ghost as a headless CMS and want a static front-end without writing a custom Gatsby setup. It's also useful for bloggers who want the Novela design but prefer Gatsby over Ghost's Handlebars theme, and for agencies that build client blogs and need a pre-configured starter with common integrations.
What can you do with the Gatsby Ghost Novela Starter?
- Ghost CMS users: Point the .ghost.json file at your Ghost installation with your Content API key, then run
gatsby developto preview the static blog locally. - Bloggers: Publish posts in Ghost's admin interface and the starter generates static pages, RSS, sitemap, and AMP versions automatically.
- Developers: Edit siteConfig.js to set navigation, footer links, social links, widget text, and analytics, then run
gatsby buildto create a public folder that can be hosted anywhere. - Agencies: Use the starter as a base for client projects, enabling Google Analytics, Segment, or Disqus through configuration without extra work.
How does the Gatsby Ghost Novela Starter work?
To get started, install the starter with gatsby new try-ghost https://github.com/draftbox-co/gatsby-ghost-novela-starter. Then customize .ghost.json with your Ghost CMS's API URL and content API key; by default, it uses the demo location at https://cms.gotsby.org. Next, update siteConfig.js with your site URL, site title, description, and other metadata. Run gatsby develop to see the site at http://localhost:8000, and gatsby build to generate the static files in the public folder for deployment.
FAQ
Does the Gatsby Ghost Novela Starter require a Ghost CMS?
Yes. All content comes from a Ghost CMS through its Content API. You must provide the API URL and content API key in .ghost.json; if you don't change these, the starter fetches content from the demo location at https://cms.gotsby.org.
How do I install the starter?
Run gatsby new try-ghost https://github.com/draftbox-co/gatsby-ghost-novela-starter, then cd try-ghost and run gatsby develop. The README also shows the top-level project structure and explains the role of files like gatsby-config.js and package.json.
How do I deploy the starter?
Use gatsby build to create a static site in the public folder, then copy those files to your web server. The README also suggests enabling the Make this site private flag in Ghost settings to disable the Handlebars front-end and keep the Gatsby site as the source of truth for SEO.
What Ghost CMS versions are supported?
The README doesn't specify version support, but it references the Ghost Content API and uses the Ghost theme structure from 2020 when the starter was published. The demo content is hosted at https://cms.gotsby.org.
Who created the starter?
It was authored by Arun Priyadarshi, Keyur Raval, Shyam Lohar, and Tanmay Desai from Draftbox, and it's released under the MIT license.
