Fetching Ghost Content with the Built-in Content API: A Practical Guide

The Problem: Getting Blog Content into Your Frontend App

When you need to pull published posts from a Ghost blog into a custom frontend—whether it's a React app, a mobile client, or a static site generator—you need a reliable way to access that content programmatically. Ghost's built-in Content API gives you that capability without requiring custom endpoints or database access.

Understanding the Content API Structure

The Content API is a REST endpoint available at /ghost/api/content/ on any Ghost 1.0+ installation. It uses a public API key for authentication, which you can generate in Ghost Admin under Integrations. Unlike the Admin API, the Content API only exposes published content, making it safe to expose in client-side applications.

Key endpoints include:

• /content/posts – Retrieve published posts
• /content/pages – Retrieve published pages
• /content/authors – Retrieve author data
• /content/tags – Retrieve tag data

Getting Started with a Basic Request

Every request requires your key parameter and a version parameter. For example, to fetch the five most recent posts:

GET /ghost/api/content/posts?limit=5&key=YOUR_PUBLIC_API_KEY&version=v5.0

The response includes an posts array with each post containing id, title, slug, published_at, and html fields. You can also request related data using the include parameter:

GET /ghost/api/content/posts?include=authors,tags&key=YOUR_PUBLIC_API_KEY&version=v5.0

Working Example: Fetching Posts with Author Data

Here's a complete example using JavaScript's fetch to retrieve posts with their authors:

const API_KEY = 'YOUR_PUBLIC_API_KEY';
const API_URL = 'https://your-ghost-blog.com/ghost/api/content/posts';

async function getPosts() {
  const url = new URL(API_URL);
  url.searchParams.set('key', API_KEY);
  url.searchParams.set('version', 'v5.0');
  url.searchParams.set('limit', 10);
  url.searchParams.set('include', 'authors,tags');
  url.searchParams.set('formats', 'html,plaintext');

  const response = await fetch(url);
  const data = await response.json();

  return data.posts.map(post => ({
    title: post.title,
    slug: post.slug,
    publishedAt: post.published_at,
    author: post.authors[0]?.name,
        excerpt: post.plaintext?.substring(0, 200) || '',
    html: post.html
  }));
}

getPosts().then(console.log);

This returns an array of post objects ready for rendering in your application.

Filtering and Pagination

The Content API supports filtering via the where parameter and pagination through limit and page. For example, to get posts published in 2024:

GET /ghost/api/content/posts?filter=published_at:>=2024-01-01,published_at:<=2024-12-31&key=YOUR_PUBLIC_API_KEY&version=v5.0

Pagination headers like X-Total-Count and X-Total-Pages let you build efficient navigation:

const response = await fetch(url);
const totalPosts = parseInt(response.headers.get('X-Total-Count'));
const totalPages = parseInt(response.headers.get('X-Total-Pages'));

Trade-offs and Limitations

While the Content API is ideal for read operations, it has important constraints:

• Rate limiting varies by hosting provider and may block aggressive requests
• No write access—creating or editing posts requires the Admin API with proper authentication
• Version dependency—API responses can differ between v3, v4, and v5; always specify your version
• Public exposure—never embed your Admin API key in client-side code

Verifying Your Setup

Test your integration by:

1. Starting a local Ghost instance via ghost-cli
2. Generating a public integration key in Admin
3. Running a simple curl request: curl "http://localhost:2368/ghost/api/content/posts?key=YOUR_KEY&version=v5.0"
4. Checking that the JSON response contains posts with expected fields

If you're using a managed Ghost(Pro) host, contact support if you encounter unexpected rate limits.