Welcome to the Mika documentation. This guide covers everything you need to install, configure, and customize Mika — a Ghost theme built for magazines, journals, and personal publications who want a full-width lead story, a scannable article feed, and a sidebar for editor picks, topics, and social follows.

Mika is built for Ghost 6.x and assumes a basic understanding of the Ghost platform. If you’re new to Ghost, we recommend the official Ghost Help Center before continuing.

Installation

You can install Mika directly from the Ghost admin panel.

Download the Mika theme .zip file:
- After purchase, you’ll receive your Purchase ID by email, sent to the email address you used for the purchase.
- Go to trexthemes.dev/download-theme.
- Enter the email address you used for the purchase and your Purchase ID.
- Click the download link to get the Mika theme .zip file.
In your Ghost admin, click Settings (the gear icon in the bottom left corner), then go to Site → Design & branding.
Click Change theme.
Click Upload theme and select the Mika .zip file you downloaded.
Once uploaded, click Activate to enable Mika on your site.

You do not need to unzip the file — Ghost handles that automatically. The theme is now live.

Note: Uploading a custom theme .zip is not available on the Ghost(Pro) Starter plan. You’ll need a higher Ghost(Pro) plan or a self-hosted Ghost installation.

Routes

Mika works with the default Ghost routing. No custom routes.yaml file is required. All standard Ghost routes are supported out of the box:

Home — /
Post — /{slug}/
Tag — /tag/{slug}/
Author — /author/{slug}/
Page — /{slug}/

If you customize routes, you can upload your own routes.yaml under Settings → Advanced → Labs → Routes.

Mika uses Ghost’s built-in navigation, with two menus: Primary and Secondary. Both are configured under Settings → Site → Navigation.

The primary menu appears in the header, next to your logo (e.g., Home, About, Tag, Author). The current page is highlighted in your accent color. On smaller screens, and via the menu icon on the left of the header, the same links open in a slide-out drawer.

Each link accepts:

Label — the visible link text
URL — a full URL or a path like /about/

Keep the primary menu short — four or five items fit the header best.

The secondary menu powers the links in the footer, shown on the left side of the footer bar (e.g., Sign up / Landing page / Tag). Links appear in the order you add them.

Tip: Ghost supports Portal links in navigation. For example, a Sign up item pointing to #/portal/signup opens the signup flow directly.

Basic settings

Publication title and description

Set your publication title and description under Settings → General → Title & description.

Title — used in browser tabs, meta data, and the copyright line. It is also displayed as text in place of the logo when no logo is uploaded.
Site description — used for meta descriptions and structured data, so keep it to one or two clean sentences.

Publication language

Set your publication language under Settings → General → Publication language. Mika uses it to load a matching translation file — see Translate.

Announcement bar

You can display a site-wide announcement at the very top of every page — useful for launches, sales, or important notices. Configure it under Settings → Site → Announcement bar:

Enter your announcement text
Choose a background style
Choose which visitors see it (visitors, free members, paid members)

Search

Mika integrates Ghost’s native search. The search icon in the header opens the search overlay, where readers can search across posts, pages, tags, and authors.

Search is enabled by default and requires no configuration.

Add your profile URLs under Settings → General → Social accounts. Ghost 6 supports a range of platforms, including X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Your configured accounts appear in the Follow box in the homepage sidebar, each with its own icon. Any social field left empty is automatically hidden. See Follow box.

Customization

Open Settings → Site → Design & branding and click Customize to access all design options. Ghost’s own options live under the Brand tab, and Mika’s custom options live under the Theme tab.

Accent color

Set your accent color under Brand → Accent color. This color is used for the Subscribe button, links, the active navigation item, the Load More button, and other interactive elements throughout your site.

Mika supports two separate accent colors — one for light mode (set here) and one for dark mode (set under Site wide → Accent color for dark mode).

Logo

Upload your logo under Brand → Publication logo. It appears in the header next to the menu icon. If no logo is uploaded, Mika displays your publication title instead.

For best results, use a PNG or SVG with a transparent background.

Mika also supports a separate Logo for dark mode — see Dark mode.

Icon

Your publication icon (the favicon) is configured under Brand → Publication icon. Ghost automatically generates the various favicon sizes needed by modern browsers.

Recommended: a square PNG, at least 60×60 px (512×512 px for the sharpest result).

Typography

Mika ships with a clean, modern sans-serif type system used across headings, body text, and interface labels. No fonts need to be uploaded.

If you want to change fonts beyond what Ghost’s Brand → Typography options provide, see the Edit theme section.

Site wide

The following options are found under Theme → Site wide and apply across your entire site.

Dark mode

Mika includes a dark color scheme, with a dark mode toggle in the header so readers can switch at any time. Two settings keep your brand legible on a dark background:

Accent color for dark mode — Set a lighter or more saturated version of your accent color so it stands out against dark surfaces.
Logo for dark mode — Upload a light-colored (e.g., white) version of your logo so it stays visible against the dark background.

Categories to explore

Choose which tags appear in the Explore Categories box in the homepage sidebar. Enter tag slugs separated by a comma, in the order you want them to appear:

news,travel

Use the tag slug, not the display name. You can find it under Tags → your tag → Slug.
Don’t add spaces around the , separator.
Each entry uses the tag’s own image and description — see Explore Categories.

Leave it empty to hide the box.

Set the copyright line shown at the bottom of every page. You can use plain text or basic HTML — for example:

Published with <a href="https://ghost.org/" target="_blank">Ghost</a>

Homepage

Mika’s homepage is built around three areas: a featured hero, a latest posts feed in the main column, and a sidebar with an editor’s pick, category boxes, and social follows.

The sticky header at the top of every page shows:

Menu icon — opens the navigation drawer.
Logo — see Logo.
Primary navigation — see Primary navigation.
Search icon — opens Ghost’s search overlay. See Search.
Dark mode toggle — switches between the light and dark color scheme. See Dark mode.
Subscribe button — opens the Portal signup flow. Logged-in members see an account link instead.

Featured hero

The top of the homepage displays your latest featured post as a full-width card, with the feature image as the background:

Primary tag — shown as a pill in the top-left corner.
Title — in large type.
Excerpt — the custom excerpt from post settings, or the start of the post if none is set.
Authors — avatars and names; multiple authors are supported.
Publish date

To feature a post, open it in the Ghost editor, open Post settings, and turn on Feature this post.

Use a high-resolution landscape image here — it is displayed at full width with a dark overlay so the text stays readable.

Latest posts feed

The main column lists your most recent posts as horizontal cards. Each card shows:

Feature image — on the left, with the primary tag as a pill on top of it. The primary tag is the first tag on the post.
Title
Excerpt
Publish date and reading time — e.g., Sep 9, 2026 • 2 min read.

Posts with restricted access display a lock icon on the feature image, so readers know the post is for members. See Access.

Load more

Below the feed, a Load More button loads the next set of posts without reloading the page. It is hidden once all posts are loaded.

The number of posts loaded per page is set in the theme’s package.json — see Edit theme.

Editor’s Pick

The first box in the sidebar highlights a single featured post as a tall card: primary tag pill, feature image, title, excerpt, author, and date.

Like the hero, it is populated from posts marked with Feature this post in the Ghost editor, so make sure you have at least two featured posts for both areas to fill.

Explore Categories

Below the editor’s pick, Mika displays one row per tag listed in Categories to explore. Each row shows the tag image, the tag name, its description, and an Explore Category link to the full tag page.

The image and text come from the tag itself in Ghost Admin:

Go to Tags in the Ghost admin sidebar.
Click the tag you want to edit (e.g., Places).
Upload a Tag image and write a short Description (one or two lines works best).
Click Save.

We recommend setting an image and description for every tag you list in Categories to explore.

Follow box

The last sidebar box lists your social profiles as rows with platform icons — for example Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, and YouTube. The links come from Settings → General → Social accounts; empty fields are hidden. See Social links.

Post

Template

Mika uses a clean, readable post template by default. Individual posts can override this with a custom template — see the Ghost documentation on custom templates if you want per-post variations.

Post settings that affect the theme

Mika relies on Ghost’s standard post settings, so filling them in carefully makes your homepage look its best:

Feature image — used in the hero, the editor’s pick, and on post cards. Use landscape images for a tidy feed.
Tags — the first tag becomes the primary tag shown as a pill on the image, and determines which category a post belongs to.
Excerpt — shown under the title in the hero and on post cards. Keep it to two or three lines.
Authors — shown on the hero and the editor’s pick; multiple authors are displayed with stacked avatars.
Feature this post — makes the post eligible for the featured hero and the Editor’s Pick box.
Post access — members-only and paid posts display a lock icon on the feature image.

Mika’s footer is a single bar with two pieces.

The links on the left come from the Secondary navigation menu. See the Navigation section for details.

Copyright

The right side shows your copyright line. See Copyright footer.

Membership

Mika integrates fully with Ghost’s built-in membership system.

Portal

Portal is Ghost’s native sign-in and subscription flow. All Subscribe buttons in Mika open Portal. Configure sign-up options under Settings → Membership → Portal settings.

Access

Set a post’s visibility (public, members, paid members, or specific tiers) under Post settings → Post access in the editor. Restricted posts show a lock icon on the homepage, and visitors without access see a preview of the post followed by a call-to-action to subscribe or upgrade.

Comments

Ghost’s native comments are supported on post pages. Enable comments under Settings → Membership → Commenting and choose whether comments are open to all members or only paid members.

Advanced

Edit theme

You can modify the theme source directly.

Download the current Mika .zip from trexthemes.dev/download-theme or from Settings → Site → Design & branding → Change theme → Installed.
Unzip the file. The assets/ folder contains CSS and JavaScript; templates use the Handlebars format (.hbs).
Install Node.js v22.
Open a terminal in the theme folder and install the dependencies:

npm install

Start the development build. Mika uses Gulp to compile assets and watch for changes while you edit:

npm run start

When you’re done, create the production build:

npm run build

The theme .zip file is created in the production/ folder. 7. Upload the new .zip to Ghost via Settings → Site → Design & branding → Change theme → Upload theme.

To change how many posts appear per page on the homepage, edit the posts_per_page value under config in package.json before building.

Keep the theme name in package.json unchanged — Ghost ties your custom theme settings to the theme name, and renaming it resets them to their defaults.

Only advanced users should modify the theme source. Custom edits are not covered by our support.

Translate

Mika is translation-ready. Interface text such as section headings and labels (e.g., Editor's Pick, Explore Categories, Follow, Explore Category, Load More, min read, Subscribe) comes from locale files.

Set your publication’s language under Settings → General → Publication language.
Mika loads a matching locale file if one is available in locales/.
To add a new language, create a .json file inside locales/ (e.g., fr.json) with translations for each key found in locales/en.json.

You can also edit locales/en.json to change the default English text — for example, the heading above the editor’s pick.

Update theme

When a new version of Mika is released, you’ll receive an email notification. To update:

Download the new .zip file:
- Go to trexthemes.dev/download-theme.
- Enter the email address you used for the purchase and your Purchase ID.
- Click the download link to get the latest Mika theme .zip file.
Upload it via Settings → Site → Design & branding → Change theme → Upload theme. Ghost will ask to overwrite the existing version — confirm to continue.
Your settings (logos, colors, navigation, custom theme options) are preserved. Edits made directly to theme files, including locale files, are replaced — back them up first.

Can’t find your Purchase ID? Contact us directly and we’ll help you get the latest version.

Feedback

Have a suggestion or want to report a bug? Contact us — we read every message.

Changelog

1.0.0 — 2026-09-17

Initial release