--- title: "Placing images in a post" description: "Choosing the cover, putting a specific asset in a specific section, how many images an article holds, and what happens when you leave it to the pipeline." updated: "2026-08-29" verifiedAgainst: - packages/shared/src/post-images.ts - packages/shared/src/assets.ts --- Images are placed in two places: the cover, and inside the article. ## The cover The pipeline chooses. If the article has content images, the first one can serve as the cover. You choose: upload a file or pick an approved asset. No cover image at all. The cover carries alt text, an optional credit, and it is what appears when the post is shared. ## Article images Inside the article, images are placed per section. In the editor you can: - place a specific approved asset in a specific section, - ask for an image to be generated for that section, - replace an image that is there, - edit alt text and credit, - remove it. An article holds at most four of these section images, whichever way they got there: approved assets you placed, images the pipeline placed, and generated ones all count against the same four. A generated draft asks for at least one, so an article does not arrive as an unbroken wall of text. The cover is counted separately from the four, and in `auto` mode it is normally one of these images reused rather than a fifth one. See [generated images](/assets/generation). ## Aspect ratio Images carry an aspect ratio so a theme can lay them out without cropping something important. Choosing a consistent ratio for article images makes a blog look considerably more deliberate than choosing per image. ## Leaving it to the pipeline A drafting run places images on its own, from your approved assets where they fit and generated images where they do not. Everything it does is visible and changeable in the editor afterwards.