Marginal

A retro-minimalist Ghost theme with IndieWeb microformats, dark mode, and zero JavaScript.

• IndieWeb-ready — Full microformat2 markup (h-feed, h-entry, h-card) for compatibility with IndieWeb readers and services
• Dark mode — Automatic light/dark switching via prefers-color-scheme
• 8 color palettes — Default, Catppuccin Mocha, Dracula, Nord, Gruvbox, Tokyo Night, Rose Pine, and Everforest — selectable from Ghost Admin
• 8 font choices — Inter, Source Sans 3, DM Sans, Space Grotesk, Libre Baskerville, JetBrains Mono, IBM Plex Mono, and Courier Prime
• Adjustable density — Compact, normal, and spacious spacing options
• Layout alignment — Left, off-center, or centered content positioning
• Ghost Members — Built-in signup, signin, and account pages

Two-column CSS Grid with navigation on the left and content on the right. Collapses to a single column on small screens. No frameworks, no dependencies at runtime.

Requires Ghost >= 5.0.0 and Node.js.

Symlink the theme into your local Ghost install:

ln -s /path/to/marginal /path/to/ghost/content/themes/marginal

Install dependencies and start developing:

npm install
npm run dev

Changes to .hbs, CSS, and JS files reload automatically in the browser.

npm run build   # Production build (CSS/JS to assets/built/)
npm run test    # Build + validate with gscan
npm run zip     # Build + create distributable zip

All styles are compiled from assets/css/index.css via Rollup + PostCSS:

assets/css/
  index.css            Main entry (imports everything below)
  vars.css             Custom properties, color palettes, dark mode
  components/          Reset, forms, buttons
  ghost/               Header, content, footer, members, pagination, etc.

Color palettes use OKLCh values with hex fallbacks. Font stacks and spacing are controlled through CSS custom properties toggled by Ghost Admin settings.

Copyright (c) 2025 Alex Klippel. Released under the MIT License.