Tribeca

Tribeca is a free, open-source blogging theme for the Ghost publishing platform, built by the Ghost Foundation, that turns a Ghost publication into a simple, beautiful content site using Handlebars templates and PostCSS-compiled styles. It is released under the MIT license and targets bloggers and publishers who want a clean, minimal design without paying for a premium theme.

What is Tribeca?

Tribeca is a free Ghost theme that runs on the Ghost CMS and renders posts, pages, tag archives, and author archives through Handlebars template files such as default.hbs, index.hbs, post.hbs, page.hbs, tag.hbs, and author.hbs. It takes standard Ghost content (posts, pages, tags, authors) as input and outputs a styled, responsive blog front-end. The theme is developed by the Ghost Foundation and is distributed under the MIT license, so it can be used, modified, and redistributed freely.

Key Features

• Handlebars templating — Uses Ghost's built-in Handlebars helpers and theme API, with documented code comments to help new theme developers understand each template file.
• Custom one-off templates — You can create template variants per page, tag, or author by appending a slug, for example page-about.hbs for the about page, tag-news.hbs for the news tag archive, and author-ali.hbs for a specific author's archive.
• Gulp/PostCSS build pipeline — Styles are written in modern CSS with PostCSS plugins and automatically compiled to /assets/built/ via Gulp; includes Autoprefixer for the latest two major browser versions, CSS variables, and the postcss-color-function plugin.
• Simple file structure — Only six main template files plus asset folders, making it easy to read, customize, and extend for a personal blog or publication.
• Packageable via pnpm — The pnpm zip Gulp task packages the theme into dist/<theme-name>.zip, ready to upload directly to a Ghost site.
• MIT license — Free for commercial and personal use with no attribution required.

Who is it for?

• Bloggers and writers — Set up a clean, minimal blog on Ghost quickly by uploading the theme zip and publishing posts without touching code.
• Ghost theme developers — Learn Ghost theme development by reading a heavily documented, small theme that demonstrates the core Handlebars templates and the theme API.
• Publishers with custom content types — Use slug-based custom templates to give specific pages, tags, or authors unique layouts without creating an entirely new theme.

What can you do with Tribeca?

• Launch a personal blog — Install Tribeca on your Ghost site and immediately get a simple, attractive design for posts, pages, and archives.
• Create custom archive layouts — Drop a tag-news.hbs file into the theme to give the news tag a different look from other tag archives.
• Develop your own Ghost theme — Start from Tribeca's source, run pnpm install and pnpm dev to watch and compile CSS changes, then use pnpm zip to produce an installable theme package.

How does Tribeca work?

To work on the theme, you need Node.js, pnpm, and Gulp installed globally. From the theme root, run pnpm install to install dependencies, then pnpm dev to build the CSS and watch for changes; edits to /assets/css/ are compiled into /assets/built/ automatically. When you are finished, pnpm zip produces a dist/<theme-name>.zip file that can be uploaded to a Ghost site.

Pricing

Tribeca is free. It is released by the Ghost Foundation under the MIT license, so there is no cost to download, use, or customize it.

FAQ

Is Tribeca free?

Yes, Tribeca is a free Ghost theme distributed under the MIT license. You can use it on any Ghost site without paying licensing fees, and you are allowed to modify and redistribute it.

What platform does Tribeca run on?

Tribeca runs on Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. It uses Ghost's Handlebars templating system and theme API, so it cannot be used on other CMS platforms like WordPress without a full rewrite.

How do I install Tribeca?

You can build the theme zip with pnpm zip after installing dependencies with pnpm install, then upload the resulting zip file to your Ghost admin panel under Design settings. The Ghost Foundation also documents theme installation in its official themes documentation.

Can I create custom templates for specific pages?

Yes. Tribeca supports Ghost's slug-based custom templates: naming a file page-about.hbs applies it to the /about/ page, tag-news.hbs applies to /tag/news/, and author-ali.hbs applies to /author/ali/.

What development tools does Tribeca use?

Styles are compiled using Gulp and PostCSS with Autoprefixer, CSS variables, and the postcss-color-function plugin. You need Node.js, pnpm, and Gulp installed to develop the theme locally.