@plugdash/fromghost

Imports a Ghost JSON export (Settings > Labs > Export your content) into EmDash. Registers a Ghost import source with EmDash's import registry, so posts, pages, tags and authors go through EmDash's own media download, taxonomy and content-creation pipeline.

EmDash's admin import screen only lists WordPress sources, so "Ghost Export File" does not appear there. Run the import through a script or the import API. Remove the plugin after the import.

Install

pnpm add @plugdash/fromghost

Register

// astro.config.mjs
import { defineConfig } from "astro/config";
import emdash from "emdash/astro";
import { fromghostPlugin } from "@plugdash/fromghost";

export default defineConfig({
	integrations: [
		emdash({
			plugins: [fromghostPlugin({ siteUrl: "https://blog.example.com" })],
		}),
	],
});

Options are passed to createPlugin(options) in the server runtime, so they are active in a production build.

Config options

Passed to fromghostPlugin({ ... }):

| Option | Type | Default | Description | | ---------------- | -------------------------------- | --------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | targetCollection | string | "posts" | Collection suggested for Ghost posts | | status | n/a | - | Not configurable - status comes from each post's own Ghost status (see below) | | preserveSlugs | boolean | true | Keep Ghost's slugs instead of regenerating from title | | importImages | boolean | true | Carry feature and inline images over | | importTags | boolean | true | Carry Ghost tags over as taxonomy terms | | siteUrl | string | "" | The Ghost site's URL, to resolve __GHOST_URL__ image paths | | paidPostsAs | "draft" \| "publish" \| "skip" | "draft" | Posts with Ghost visibility members, paid or tiers. The export holds their full body, so the default keeps them off the public site. meta.visibility is recorded either way |

siteUrl matters: Ghost writes images and links as __GHOST_URL__/... rather than an absolute URL. With siteUrl set, every placeholder in the post HTML is replaced before conversion, and inline images are listed in the analysis attachments so EmDash downloads them. Without it, site-relative feature images are skipped (the import continues without them).

Recoverable problems (Lexical-only drafts, duplicate slugs, unresolved images) are returned as warnings on the analysis. emdash 1.0.1's ImportAnalysis type has no warnings field, so this is an extra property on the object.

Import status (draft vs. published) is not a plugin setting - it is read straight from each post's own Ghost status via fetchContent's includeDrafts option, which EmDash's import screen controls.

Field mapping

| Ghost field | EmDash field | | ------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | title | title | | slug | slug (or regenerated, see preserveSlugs) | | html | content, via htmlToPortableText | | custom_excerpt (falls back to excerpt) | excerpt | | feature_image | featuredImage (after __GHOST_URL__ resolution) | | published_at (falls back to created_at) | date | | updated_at | modified | | meta_title | meta.seoTitle | | meta_description | meta.seoDescription | | tags via posts_tags | tags (public tags only) | | author via posts_authors | author (first author's slug) |

What it does

• Parses Ghost's { db: [{ meta, data }] } export shape, and the looser { data } / { posts } shapes some third-party exporters use
• Handles both Ghost 5 (type: "post" | "page") and Ghost 4 (page: boolean) post-type flags
• Converts post body HTML to Portable Text via the same shared @plugdash/html-to-portable-text converter fromsubstack uses
• Falls back to a plain-text recovery of Ghost 5 Lexical drafts that were never rendered to HTML (html: null), and warns when it does
• Resolves tags and the primary author through the posts_tags / posts_authors join tables, in Ghost's own sort order
• Skips duplicate slugs (keeping the first occurrence) and warns
• Skips a feature image that cannot be resolved to an absolute URL and warns, rather than failing the whole post
• Reports post/page counts, tag counts, attachment counts (feature and inline images) and warnings through ImportAnalysis
• Loads the HTML converter (and linkedom) only when an import runs, so having the plugin registered costs nothing at startup

What it does not do

• Does not convert Mobiledoc (Ghost 3 and older editor format) - such posts import with an empty body and a warning
• Does not download or upload media itself - featuredImage is handed to EmDash's import pipeline as a URL, which owns the actual download
• Does not import Ghost members, newsletters, or comments
• Does not preserve Ghost's internal tags (visibility: "internal") as taxonomy - those are Ghost's own bookkeeping
• Cannot be sandboxed - it registers directly into EmDash's import-source registry
• Does not appear in the admin import screen (WordPress only in emdash 1.0.1)