How I Set Up Ghost on My Mac—With Minimal Global Dependencies
Recently, I set up a new Mac and wanted to be more intentional about managing installations, especially with Node packages. Having faced headaches from global dependency conflicts before, particularly when developing Ghost themes for this blog, I aimed to keep my system clean and conflicts minimal.
This time, I decided to use nvm (Node Version Manager) to locally manage Node.js (v20, recommended by Ghost). Using nvm allows each project directory to have its own specific Node version, avoiding clashes. To streamline this, I created a simple script that sets everything up automatically:
- Installs Node.js v20 with
nvm - Sets up Ghost locally
- Adds local development tools like
yarnandgscan
Optional manual step: Automatically switches to the correct Node version when you enter the directory (enabled via an addition to your .zshrc).
Now, when I want to remove or reset the setup, it's as simple as deleting the project folder—minimal residue left behind to cleanup.
If you’re curious or want to use the same setup, check out the repo on GitHub.