Homepage sections
The band of editorial section rows below the Editor's Picks strip. Each row is a Ghost page tagged with one of seven
Below the Editor's Picks strip on the homepage, Meridian renders a band of section rows — visual blocks each shaped like a different newspaper section. Each row is driven by a Ghost page, not by tagging individual posts. The page acts as a "row recipe": its layout comes from a #home-* internal tag, its section name comes from its primary public tag, and the posts that fill the row are pulled by matching that primary tag.
The model in one sentence
One Ghost page = one homepage section row. The page never renders at its own URL — it exists only to compose the row.
How a row is composed
For every row you want on the homepage, you create one Ghost page (Pages → New page) and configure three things:
- A public tag — e.g.
Politics,Markets,Opinion. This becomes the row's heading and the target of theMore in {tag} →link. It must be the page's primary tag (the first tag you add). - A
#home-*internal tag — picks the layout for the row. Seven layouts are listed below. - Page publish date — orders the rows on the homepage. Pages are listed newest-first, so the most recently-published recipe page sits at the top of the band. Up to 20 rows are rendered.
Once the page exists, every post that has the same primary tag automatically appears in the row, sorted newest-first. You don't tag individual posts with #home-* — only the recipe page does.
One #home-* tag per page
If a recipe page is tagged with two #home-* layouts, the first match in the precedence chain wins (the order they appear below). Stick to one layout tag per page.
How to add a section row
Create the recipe page
In Ghost Admin, go to Pages → New page. Title it after the section ("Politics", "Markets", "Opinion") — the title isn't displayed on the homepage but it's how you'll find the page later.
Add the public section tag first
In Page settings → Tags, add the public tag whose name should appear in the row header (e.g. Politics). The first tag you add becomes the primary tag — that's what drives the section's heading and the posts query for every layout except #home-tag-columns.
Add the layout tag
Add one of the seven #home-* internal tags (e.g. #home-asymmetric-lead-list). The leading # makes it internal — it won't appear in tag archives, but it will route the row to the right layout.
(For #home-tag-columns only) Add the column tags
If you picked #home-tag-columns, add the public tags you want as columns in the order you want them shown. The primary tag becomes column 1; subsequent public tags become subsequent columns.
(Optional) Author the body / excerpt
The page body is unused for every layout except #home-tag-columns, where the custom excerpt renders as a small eyebrow above the columns. You can leave the body empty.
Publish
Click Publish. The row will appear on the homepage at a position based on the page's publish date — newest pages sit at the top of the band.
Republish to reposition
Row order follows the page's published_at date, newest first. To bring an existing row to the top of the band, edit the recipe page and re-publish (or update the publish date).
The seven section layouts
The layouts are listed in precedence order. If a page somehow ends up with two #home-* tags, the higher-listed layout wins.
#home-feature-package
#home-feature-packageCinematic hero with gradient text overlay on a large feature image (desktop) + a supporting stack on the right (post 2 as a horizontal card, posts 3–5 as a numbered list with thumbnails). Up to 5 posts. Only posts that have a feature image are eligible — posts without an image are filtered out.
Editor
Preview
Use for: the lead investigation, a special package, the morning's biggest story.
#home-briefing
#home-briefingImage-less morning bulletin / digest. Up to 9 posts in a responsive 1 / 2 / 3 column grid; each item is a compact card with a small thumbnail (or section eyebrow when there's no image).
Editor
Preview
Use for: roundups, daily briefings, "what you missed overnight", market openings.
#home-briefing-carousel
#home-briefing-carouselThumb-row briefing cards in a horizontal scroll-snap track — three cards visible on desktop, slide for more. Up to 27 posts. Same morning-briefing voice as #home-briefing, but trades the static stack for a carousel when you want to surface a deeper queue.
Editor
Preview
Use for: longer briefings, "the morning queue", any section where you have more entries than a static stack can hold without growing the homepage too long.
#home-asymmetric-lead-list
#home-asymmetric-lead-listLead post + secondary list. Left column: a hero with feature image (post 1) followed by two sub-cards (posts 2–3) underneath. Right column: a compact thumb-row list (posts 4–12, up to nine items, hairline-separated). The classic Markets / Politics layout — one lead, the rest as headlines.
Editor
Preview
Use for: a vertical desk (Markets, Politics, Sports) where one story leads and the rest are headlines.
#home-opinion-hedcut
#home-opinion-hedcutColumnist cards in a 1 / 2 / 3 column grid (up to 6 columnists), each card showing the author's profile image (or a hedcut placeholder if no image), the column title in italic display serif, and the byline. Designed for opinion sections where the byline is the brand.
Editor
Preview
Use for: the Opinion / Editorial / Commentary desk where the byline is the brand.
#home-tag-columns
#home-tag-columnsN parallel columns — one column per public tag attached to the recipe page itself, in editor-set order. Each column shows that tag's five newest posts: a lead with feature image at the top, then four hairline-separated headlines below. Up to four columns visible on XL screens.
This is the only layout that does not use the page's primary tag to pull posts. Instead, every public tag you add to the recipe page becomes its own column, and the column header links to that tag's archive. The page's custom excerpt renders as a small eyebrow above the columns; if you leave it blank, the eyebrow is omitted.
Editor
Preview
Use for: a section row that mirrors a navigation list — "Politics / Markets / Culture / Tech" side by side, each column a live feed of its newest stories. The recipe page itself is just a tag carrier; tag order matches the column order.
#home-standard-3-column-grid
#home-standard-3-column-gridA horizontal scroll-snap carousel using the default post-card variant — three cards visible on desktop, slide for more, up to 9 posts. Same arrow controls as the Editor's Picks strip and the briefing carousel. Despite the name, it isn't a static three-up grid — it's a paginated carousel that surfaces three cards at a time.
Editor
Preview
Use for: general news, features, anything that doesn't fit one of the six specialized layouts.
Safe-default fallback
If a recipe page is tagged with one of the #home-* tags but the partial somehow can't match it (e.g. mid-rename), Meridian renders a quiet 3-up static grid using the page's primary tag, limit 3. This is the silent fallback so a malformed page never breaks the homepage.
Hiding a section row
A row only renders if the recipe page exists, is published, and has at least one post (or, for #home-tag-columns, at least one column with posts). To hide a row temporarily:
- Set the recipe page to draft in Page settings → Publish status. The row disappears until you re-publish.
- Delete the recipe page to remove the row permanently.
You don't have to touch the posts themselves — they stay published at their own URLs and in their tag archives; they're just no longer pinned to a homepage row.
Designing your section cadence
Each desk gets one recipe page. Pick the layout that fits the desk's editorial shape — a long briefing queue gets #home-briefing-carousel, a markets desk with one lead gets #home-asymmetric-lead-list, an opinion section gets #home-opinion-hedcut. You don't have to use all seven; pick the ones that match your sections.
A typical setup:
- Lead investigation / day's biggest story →
#home-feature-package - Markets / Politics desk →
#home-asymmetric-lead-list - Opinion →
#home-opinion-hedcut - Briefing / digest →
#home-briefing(or#home-briefing-carouselfor a longer queue) - Section index row →
#home-tag-columnson a page with the section tags attached - General news, features, everything else →
#home-standard-3-column-grid
Up to 20 recipe pages are rendered on the homepage. Past that, the oldest pages stop appearing — keep the band trimmed to the rows you actually want above the archive tail.
Editor's note
A short italic note in the homepage secondary aside, sourced from a Ghost page with slug editors-note. Optional — hides itself when the page doesn't exist.
Membership CTA
A full-bleed member signup band rendered above the site footer on every page. Editorial copy lives on a Ghost page; pricing fills automatically from your tiers; delete the page to hide the band site-wide.