Content Lifecycle configuration

Writing a rule

A rule reads as a sentence: After a number of days, weeks or months since publication, do one thing. Press + Add rule, fill in the two blanks, and the card restates the rule in plain words underneath so you can check it says what you meant. Save to keep it. The three things a rule can do:

• Change access to Public, Members only, Paid members only, or Specific tiers (tick the tiers).
• Unpublish the post, which sends it back to a draft.
• Add a tag, chosen from your existing tags. The post's other tags are kept.

Rules compose. When several apply to one post, it gets a single edit with everything in it; where two access rules both qualify, the one with the longer wait wins, so "members after a month, public after a year" behaves the way it reads.

Only apply to…

Each rule can be narrowed with the fold-out under it:

• Posts whose current access is Public, Members only, Paid members only, or Specific tiers (none checked means any). Ticking Specific tiers lets you name the tiers; with none named, any tier-limited post qualifies.
• Posts tagged any of the tags you pick, so a sponsored series can keep its own schedule while the rest of the site keeps yours.

Two things a rule never touches: pages, and anything tagged #automation-optout. Add that tag to the evergreen pillar page or the piece that must stay exactly as it is. Drafts and email-only posts aren't candidates either; only published posts are.

Changing a rule's timing, action or filters makes it a new rule as far as the tool is concerned: the next Run all now applies it to every post that qualifies, including posts the old version already handled. The card warns you when a change will do that. Switching a rule off and on again doesn't.

Run all now

Preview changes checks every published post against every enabled rule, including posts that crossed a threshold long ago, and shows what would change: how many of the candidate posts, a count per rule, and a few sample titles for each. Nothing has moved yet. Read it over and press Apply these changes, or change the rules and preview again (the tool insists on a fresh preview after an edit). Each changed post is edited once in Ghost.

This is the only way the back catalogue gets swept. Lifecycle rules are not retroactively applied by "Run every night".

Run every night

With Run every night ticked, a nightly run changes the posts that crossed a rule's threshold since the day before. Posts already past a threshold when a rule is created are left alone; use Run all now for those. The Rules tab shows when the last run happened, whether it was nightly or manual, and how many posts it changed. Nightly runs are part of the Core plan; rules and Run all now work on every plan.

Each rule touches a post once

Every post a rule handles is remembered, so if you flip a post back by hand afterwards, the rule doesn't flip it again. Your editors aren't fighting a robot. The Activity tab lists the runs and the recent changes, post by post, with the rule that made each one.