Installation

This page covers what Ghostwriter needs, installing it, the queue it runs on, and updating or removing it.

Requirements#

• PHP 8.3 or later, with the GD extension (it draws the striped image placeholders).
• Statamic 6.
• An API key for one writing provider: Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (ChatGPT) or Google (Gemini). See API keys.
• A queue worker, or PHP-FPM if your site uses the sync queue. See The queue.

Optional:

• An OpenAI or Gemini key, to make images. Claude doesn't make images.
• The Imagick extension. Ghostwriter sends small copies of images to the model, made with Imagick when it is loaded and with GD otherwise.

Install the addon#

From your project's root:

composer require 1994/ghostwriter-statamic

This also installs 1994/ghostwriter-core (~0.3.0) from Packagist: the part Ghostwriter shares with its Filament and Craft versions. No extra repository is needed.

Ghostwriter no longer uses the Laravel AI SDK (laravel/ai). It has its own connection to Anthropic, OpenAI and Gemini, and doesn't read config/ai.php, except that a key still set there is used when the matching .env variable is empty. If config/ai.php was only there for Ghostwriter, you can delete it.

Then publish the Control Panel assets:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=ghostwriter-statamic --force

Add that line to your deploy script after composer install, so the assets reach the server too. public/vendor/ghostwriter-statamic can be left out of version control.

Add your API key#

Add the key for your provider to .env, for example ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-.... See API keys for every key Ghostwriter can use.

Who can use it#

Ghostwriter adds one permission, Write content and edit the voice guide with Ghostwriter. See Permissions.

The queue#

Writing a draft or a guide can take a minute or more, longer than a web request should be held open.

• With a queue connection (database, Redis and so on), each model call runs as a queued job. Keep a worker running, or nothing happens:

  php artisan queue:work --timeout=960
  

  If nothing picks the work up for a while, Ghostwriter says so: "Still waiting for a queue worker to pick this up. Is “php artisan queue:work” running?" It names the queue when it isn't default.

• On the sync driver, the default for a flat-file site, the call runs after the response has been sent, in the same PHP process, while the screen checks back for the result. This needs PHP-FPM, which Herd, Forge and most hosts use. php artisan serve handles one request at a time, so it blocks until the call is done.

Why 960 seconds. Each model call may take up to timeout seconds (300 by default). A provider that is busy or limiting requests is tried again, up to three attempts in all (see Busy providers and retries), so each job is allowed timeout × 3 + 60 seconds: 960 with the default. Set your worker's own limit (--timeout, or Horizon's timeout) at least that high. On the database queue, also set DB_QUEUE_RETRY_AFTER above it, for example 1020, so a long job isn't handed out twice. If you raise GHOSTWRITER_TIMEOUT, raise these too.

Updating#

composer update 1994/ghostwriter-statamic
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=ghostwriter-statamic --force
php artisan queue:restart

A running worker keeps the old code until it restarts, hence the last line. See the changelog for what changed.

Uninstalling#

composer remove 1994/ghostwriter-statamic

Ghostwriter adds no database tables. Its guides, kinds and plan stay in resources/ghostwriter/, its settings in resources/addons/ghostwriter-statamic.yaml, and its working files in storage/ghostwriter/, until you delete them. Assets it saved stay in your containers: photos, made images and the striped placeholder, and any logo cards made before version 1.1.0.

Next: Get started.