Ghost Like Button

Self-hosted likes for Ghost members, backed by SQLite and delivered as a Node service.

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🚀 Quick Install

git clone https://github.com/ifrederico/ghost-like-button.git
cd ghost-like-button
bash install.sh

The installer will:

• Prompt for your Ghost URL (full URL with https://)
• Auto-detect your Ghost Docker network
• Create necessary directories with correct permissions
• Start the service

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📦 Manual Installation

If you prefer to configure everything yourself:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/ifrederico/ghost-like-button.git
cd ghost-like-button

# Create and configure .env
cp .env.example .env
nano .env  # Set your GHOST_URL

# Find your Ghost Docker network
docker network ls | grep ghost

# Edit compose.yml with your network name
nano compose.yml  # Replace ghost_ghost_network with your actual network

# Create data directory with correct permissions
mkdir -p data
chown -R 1000:1000 data/

# Start the service
docker compose up -d

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📋 Requirements

• Docker + Docker Compose
• A running Ghost instance (the like service joins its Docker network)
• Ghost members enabled (Settings → Membership)

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Theme Integration

Looking for a complete example? Check out Pastiche - a Ghost theme with the like button already integrated.

Add the like button to your Ghost theme:

1. Add to your post template

In post.hbs or index.hbs:

<like-button api="/ghost-like-button" url="{{url absolute="true"}}"></like-button>
<script defer src="{{asset "js/ghost-like-button.js"}}"></script>

2. Create the web component

Create assets/js/ghost-like-button.js:

customElements.define('like-button', class extends HTMLElement {
  async connectedCallback() {
    const base = this.getAttribute('api') ?? '/ghost-like-button';
    const target = encodeURIComponent(this.getAttribute('url'));
    const btn = Object.assign(document.createElement('button'), { textContent: '❤ 0' });
    btn.addEventListener('click', () => this.toggle(`${base}/update-likes?url=${target}`, btn));
    this.append(btn);
    this.refresh(`${base}/get-likes?url=${target}`, btn);
  }

  async refresh(endpoint, btn) {
    const res = await fetch(endpoint, { credentials: 'include' });
    if (res.ok) btn.textContent = `❤ ${await res.text()}`;
  }

  async toggle(endpoint, btn) {
    const res = await fetch(endpoint, { method: 'POST', credentials: 'include' });
    if (res.ok) btn.textContent = `❤ ${await res.text()}`;
  }
});

3. Configure reverse proxy

Add to your Caddy configuration (see Caddyfile.example for full examples):

yourdomain.com {
    # Your existing Ghost config...

    handle_path /ghost-like-button/* {
        reverse_proxy ghost-like-button:8787
    }

    # Your Ghost service
    reverse_proxy ghost:2368
}

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🔧 Configuration

Variable	Required	Default	Purpose
GHOST_URL	Yes	-	Full Ghost URL (e.g., https://yourdomain.com). Used for CORS and JWT validation.
PORT	No	8787	Internal HTTP port.
NODE_ENV	No	production	Standard Node environment flag.

Edit .env to change these values.

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📡 API Reference

Method & Path	Description
GET /health	Basic health probe.
GET /get-likes?url=<post-url>	Returns total likes (text body).
POST /update-likes?url=<post-url>	Toggles like/unlike for the member.

GET responses include the X-Has-Liked header (1 or 0) when a member JWT is present.

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🔄 Updates

cd ghost-like-button
git pull
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

Your database in ./data/ is preserved across updates.

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🛠️ Maintenance

# View logs
docker compose logs ghost-like-button

# Check database
sqlite3 data/ghost-like-button.db ".tables"

# Compact database (optional)
sqlite3 data/ghost-like-button.db "PRAGMA wal_checkpoint(TRUNCATE);"

# Restart service
docker compose restart ghost-like-button

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💾 Backup

Your SQLite database is stored in ./data/ghost-like-button.db. Back it up like any other file:

cp data/ghost-like-button.db data/ghost-like-button.db.backup

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🔒 Security

• Rate limiting: 90 requests/minute per IP
• CORS restricted to your Ghost domain
• JWT validation (trusted internal network)
• No personal data stored except email for deduplication

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📝 License

MIT License - See LICENSE file

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💬 Support

Open an issue on GitHub if you need help with setup.