How do I assign authors to a Ghost post?

Definition: Author assignment in Ghost associates a post with the staff profiles selected in its Authors setting. As of October 2026, Ghost supports multiple authors on a post; the primary author is the first person in the ordered author list.

Key facts

• Ghost's post settings documentation states that a new post initially belongs to the logged-in user who creates it and supports additional authors.
• The authors helper documentation explains that dragging and dropping changes author order, and that primary_author refers to the first author.
• Ghost's team management guide identifies the staff profile's Full name field as the name used in the published byline, the visible author credit.

Where are authors assigned?

The editor's post settings menu contains the Authors setting, documented in Ghost's publishing preparation guide. The field holds the author selection for that individual post. Adding collaborators there gives a shared article multiple assigned authors.

Because the creator is the initial selection, preparing an article on someone else's behalf calls for checking the Authors field before publishing.

How are the author profiles prepared?

Ghost's Invite your team guide places staff management at Settings > General > Staff in Ghost Admin. The Invite people action adds staff users. Editors can invite Contributors and Authors, while Administrators have broader user management access.

Each staff user has a profile managed in that Staff area. Its Full name can contain a real name or a pseudonym and supplies the published author name. The profile's Slug, a URL-friendly identifier, determines its author page address.

The guide also separates staff permissions: Authors can publish their own posts, while Editors can edit and publish other people's posts. These roles determine access to editing and publishing work.

How does the primary author affect the displayed credit?

Ghost's authors theme documentation says the author list follows the order saved on the post. Dragging the intended primary author into the first position changes which person the primary_author helper selects.

A helper is a template instruction used by a Ghost theme. The documented instruction for displaying a linked author list is:

{{authors}}

The corresponding instruction for displaying only the first author is:

{{primary_author}}

The list helper uses commas by default and links names to their author pages. When additional authors are selected but only one name appears on the page, checking the theme's author output is a useful next step.

Related terms

• Author byline
• Author profile page
• How should multiple article authors be marked up?
• What structured data does Ghost generate automatically?

FAQ

Can I credit more than one person on a post?

Yes. Ghost's post settings guide documents support for multiple authors on a single post. Check the Authors selection for the article being prepared.

How do I choose which author is primary?

Use the first position in the author list. Ghost's authors documentation explains reordering by dragging and dropping and identifies the first author as primary.

Where do I correct an author's displayed name?

Edit the staff profile's Full name field. Ghost's team guide identifies that field as the source of the published byline name.

Sources

1. Ghost, "Preparing posts for publishing", undated
2. Ghost, "authors", undated
3. Ghost, "Invite your team", undated

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