Theme settings guide
Manifesto, setting by setting.
Manifesto gives you ten controls in Ghost Admin — the ticker, the homepage layout, the podcast and authors rows, their headings, two social links and your newsletter wording. This page explains what each one does and where it appears, plus the few setup steps that make the theme look like the demo.
Where the settings live
Every setting on this page is in Ghost Admin, in one place:
Settings→Design & branding→Theme settings
Ghost groups them into Site-wide and Homepage — the same two groups used below.
Manifesto deliberately adds no colour or font settings of its own. It uses the accent colour and fonts you already choose in Ghost's Brand settings, so there is one place to set them. See Colour and type.
Every setting has a sensible default, and every heading falls back to its default wording if you clear it, so the theme never shows an empty heading. Treat the settings as refinements rather than a setup checklist.
First ten minutes
Just activated the theme? These steps make it look like the demo. None of them is required — every page works without them.
- Upload the routes file. Settings → Labs → Routes, then upload the routes.yaml from the theme download. It adds the /magazine/ and /podcast/ pages and tidier URLs — see Routes and URLs before you do this on an established site.
- Set up navigation. Settings → Navigation: add Magazine (/magazine/), Podcast (/podcast/) and Authors (/authors/). Anything in secondary navigation appears in the footer instead.
- Create the Authors page. A new page, not a post, with the URL slug authors. Leave it empty and the theme fills it with everyone who writes for you.
- Tag podcast episodes with a tag whose slug is podcast. Skip this if you do not run one.
- Mark your best posts as Featured in post settings, to fill the Editor's picks sidebar.
- Fill in author profiles under Settings → Staff: picture, cover image, location and bio all appear in the theme.
All ten settings
Use the search box to jump to a setting — it matches names, descriptions and placements as you type.
Homepage
Controls the front page only. Page two onwards is a plain archive and does not use these.
A full-width bar of your eight latest headlines, scrolling continuously, each linking to its story. Readers can pause it; it stops while a headline has keyboard focus, and becomes a still, sideways-scrollable row for anyone whose device asks for reduced motion.
Where it appears: the front page, beneath the masthead.
The bar takes your accent colour. The newsletter band above the footer uses the same design with a fixed word, and is not affected by this setting.
How the feed beneath the lead story is arranged. Grid sets posts in two columns with the image on top; List gives each post its own row with the image on the left — more room for headlines and excerpts, fewer stories in view.
Where it appears: the "Latest stories" feed on the front page. Archives always use the ruled card grid.
Choose List if your headlines run long or your excerpts do real work.
A row of your three latest podcast episodes, with a link to the full archive.
Where it appears: the front page, beneath the feed.
The row hides itself when no posts are tagged podcast, so there is no need to turn it off just because you do not run one — but you can.
A row of your four most prolific authors, with a link to the authors directory once you have created it.
Where it appears: the front page, at the bottom.
Only staff with published posts are shown, so an owner account that has only written pages never appears.
Site-wide
Applies across the whole publication.
Your full Instagram address, starting with https://. An Instagram icon appears once it is filled in.
Where it appears: the social icons in the header and footer.
Blank hides the icon. X and Facebook come from Ghost's own social accounts instead — see below.
Your full YouTube channel address, starting with https://.
Where it appears: the social icons in the header and footer.
Blank hides the icon.
One heading for everywhere your writers are gathered. Try Contributors or Meet the team. Short titles are sized to fill the page width; longer ones wrap onto several lines.
Where it appears: the homepage authors row, the big title on /authors/ and the section label at the top of every author profile.
Default: Authors. Clear it and the default comes back.
The name of your show. Short titles fill the page width; longer ones wrap.
Where it appears: the homepage podcast row and the big title on /podcast/.
Default: Podcast. Clear it and the default comes back.
The invitation to subscribe. Short or long both work.
Where it appears: the signup box in the homepage sidebar and the signup band above the footer, on members-enabled sites.
Default: The best of the magazine, in your inbox. Clear it and the default comes back, so the section always has a heading.
The line beneath the newsletter heading. Say what a subscriber actually gets.
Where it appears: the same two places as the heading.
Default: New stories, straight from the editors. Free to join, easy to leave. Unlike the headings, clearing this one hides the line, leaving just the heading and the Subscribe button.
No setting matches that search. Try a shorter word, or clear the box to see all ten.
Colour and type are Ghost's, not the theme's
This is the most common source of confusion, so it is worth being explicit: Manifesto has no colour setting and no font setting. It uses Ghost's own, under Settings → Design & branding → Brand, one level up from the theme settings panel.
One accent colour
Ghost's accent colour drives the buttons, tag pills, link underlines, the news ticker and the quote marks. Any colour works: the text on buttons and the ticker switches between black and white automatically, so it always keeps AA contrast. Warm oranges, pinks and yellows suit the theme best.
Fonts follow Ghost's font settings
Ghost's heading font replaces the display type — the masthead, headlines and section titles. Its body font replaces article text and excerpts. Leave both on Theme default for Bricolage Grotesque headings and Newsreader body text.
The default fonts are served by Bunny Fonts, a privacy-focused font service, rather than from inside the theme. That is a request to a third party on every page view; if your privacy policy lists your site's suppliers, add it there.
Dark mode is automatic
Manifesto ships a full dark palette and follows the reader's operating system setting. The footer, newsletter band and feature hero flip to light panels, and Ghost's editor cards — which are light-only by default — are repainted to match. There is nothing to configure and no toggle to add.
Routes and URLs
The theme download includes a routes.yaml. Uploading it under Settings → Labs → Routes gives you:
| URL | What it shows |
|---|---|
| / | The homepage |
| /magazine/ | Every article, newest first, with pagination |
| /post/your-post/ | An article |
| /podcast/ | Every podcast episode |
| /podcast/your-episode/ | A podcast episode |
| /category/your-tag/ | Posts with a tag |
| /author/their-name/ | An author's profile |
The routes file changes your post URLs. On a new site that does not matter. On an established one, links shared before the switch will need redirects — or skip the routes file entirely. Every template works with Ghost's standard URLs; you only lose the separate /magazine/ and /podcast/ pages.
As with any routes change, download your current routes.yaml first so you can put it back.
How the homepage builds itself
Most "something is missing" questions are really about this structure, so it is worth reading once.
- The masthead — your site title, set as large as the width allows, with today's date and your site description.
- The news ticker, if it is on.
- The lead story is simply your newest post, shown with its excerpt and full-width feature image.
- The feed carries on from the second post, in Grid or List, twelve posts to a page in all.
- The sidebar holds Editor's picks — your three latest Featured posts — and the newsletter box.
- The podcast row and authors row follow, if they are on and have something to show.
Every page then ends with any publications you recommend in Ghost, the newsletter band and the footer. The footer's Sections column lists your three most-used tags.
Page two looks different, deliberately
Ghost uses one template for the front page and another for every page after it. Page two onwards is a plain archive with the category bar and card grid — no masthead, ticker or sidebar. Tag archives and the /magazine/ page use the same layout.
Podcast and authors
The podcast is just a tag
Any post tagged with the slug podcast becomes an episode: an Episode label above the title, square artwork, and a Duration label. Ghost has no audio-length field, so the duration is Ghost's reading time — write show notes roughly as long as the episode, or treat the label as a guide. Embed the audio with any Koenig card: Ghost's own audio card, or an embed from your podcast host.
Not running a podcast?
Nothing podcast-related appears unless posts carry that tag. To tidy up completely, turn off Show podcast section, leave Podcast out of your navigation, and — before uploading the routes file — delete its /podcast/ lines so there is no empty page.
Authors
The authors directory lives on a page with the slug authors; any text you write on that page appears above the list. Author cards show each writer's Location from Settings → Staff as their city and their number of published posts as Stories. Profile pages show a cover image, when one is set, and an icon for every social account the author has filled in.
Members and signup surfaces
Every membership element in Manifesto knows who is reading:
- The Subscribe button, newsletter box and newsletter band appear only when members are enabled and signups are open to everyone.
- They are hidden from signed-in members, who see an Account button in place of Sign in and Subscribe.
- Members-only and paid posts carry a Members or Paid badge in every listing, from Ghost's own post access setting.
A reader who reaches a locked story sees the free preview and then Manifesto's own paywall prompt, in place of Ghost's default box. Native comments appear beneath posts once enabled under Settings → Membership, and the byline then shows a comment count. Search uses Ghost's built-in search.
The content conventions that matter
Much of what makes the demo look finished is ordinary Ghost fields, filled in well.
| Where it shows | Ghost field |
|---|---|
| Standfirst under a post title | Post settings → Excerpt |
| Image descriptions | The feature image's alt text, falling back to the post title |
| Editor's picks | Posts marked Featured — chosen by you, since Ghost gives themes no view counts |
| Category banner | Settings → Tags → Tag image |
| Author banner | Settings → Staff → Cover image |
The feature hero template
For a story that deserves a cover, choose Feature hero under post settings → Template. The feature image fills the screen with the headline set over it, then the article continues as normal. A post without a feature image gets a solid ink hero, so the template is safe to choose for anything.
Everything degrades gracefully: a new site, a category with nothing in it yet or an author who has not published shows a short message instead of an empty page.
Beyond the settings
Change how many posts appear per page
Manifesto shows twelve posts per page. That number lives in the theme's package.json rather than in Ghost Admin, so changing it means editing the theme and re-uploading the ZIP. Keep a note of the change — a theme update will overwrite it.
Force light mode and disable dark mode
Dark mode follows the reader's operating system by design, and there is deliberately no setting for it. To remove it, delete the @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) block near the end of assets/css/screen.css and re-upload the theme.
Rename the ticker's "News" label or other interface words
Every fixed piece of interface wording — News, Latest stories, Editor's picks, Listen — lives in locales/en.json. Edit the value on the right-hand side, keep the key on the left, and re-upload the theme.
Small style changes that survive updates
Put CSS overrides in Settings → Code injection → Site header rather than editing screen.css. Injected CSS survives theme updates; direct edits do not.
Troubleshooting
My accent colour did nothing
Check Design & branding → Brand rather than theme settings. Manifesto uses Ghost's own accent colour, so there is exactly one place to set it.
The text on my buttons turned black
Intended. Manifesto picks black or white text for whichever passes contrast against your accent colour, so a bright accent gets black text.
Editor's picks is missing
It lists posts marked Featured in post settings. With none, the list is hidden rather than left empty.
The podcast row is missing
It needs posts tagged with the slug podcast — check the slug, not just the tag's name — and Show podcast section turned on.
/authors/ shows a 404
Create a page (not a post) with the URL slug authors. The theme fills it automatically.
Someone is missing from the authors row or directory
Only staff with at least one published post appear, so their author page is never empty. The homepage row shows the four with the most posts.
My post URLs changed
That is the routes file, which moves articles to /post/…/. Put your previous routes.yaml back, or add redirects for links shared before the change. See Routes and URLs.
Page two looks different from the homepage
Expected. Ghost uses one template for the front page and another for the pages after it, so page two onwards is a plain archive.
I cannot find the theme settings panel
Manifesto must be the active theme, not merely uploaded. Activate it under Settings → Design & branding → Change theme, then reload Ghost Admin. Custom themes also require Ghost(Pro) Publisher or higher, or a self-hosted install.
Dark mode will not turn off
It follows the reader's system setting by design. See Beyond the settings for how to remove it if you are certain.
Still stuck?
Email [email protected] with your Ghost version, the page URL and a screenshot or the exact error. I aim to reply within two business days, and support covers installation, documented settings and confirmed defects.
For installation, updates and licensing, see the main documentation. For release notes, see the changelog.