smart-illustrator

Smart Illustrator

中文文档

🆕 v1.4.0 — Tri-Engine System (Feb 2026)

New Excalidraw engine for hand-drawn concept diagrams. Three-tier priority: Gemini → Excalidraw → Mermaid. All diagram engines now output PNG by default. Details →

Intelligent article illustration Skill for Claude Code with tri-engine system: automatically selects Gemini (for creative visuals), Excalidraw (for hand-drawn diagrams), or Mermaid (for structured diagrams) based on content type.

Status

Status: Experimental

• This is a public prototype that works for my demos, but does not yet cover all input scales and edge cases.
• Output quality varies based on model version and input structure; results may fluctuate.
• My primary focus is demonstrating how tools and systems work together, not maintaining this codebase.
• If you encounter issues, please submit a reproducible case (input + output file + steps to reproduce).

Why Smart Illustrator?

Creating illustrations for articles is time-consuming: manual design takes hours, stock photos lack context, and generic AI tools don't understand article structure. Smart Illustrator combines intelligent position detection, tri-engine system (Gemini + Excalidraw + Mermaid), and cover learning to generate contextual illustrations in minutes.

Who it's for: Newsletter writers, YouTube creators, technical bloggers, course instructors.

When to use: When you need high-quality illustrations for articles, YouTube thumbnails with best practices, or consistent visual style across content series.

Background: the Make workflow version (auto-illustrate + WeChat publish)

Before packaging this into a Skill, I had already built an end-to-end Make workflow: search → write → auto-illustrate → format/publish (WeChat Official Account).

Full walkthrough (workflow logic & design trade-offs): https://youtu.be/TbyJ3imLuXQ

Features

• Tri-Engine System: Auto-selects Gemini, Excalidraw, or Mermaid based on content type
• Smart Position Detection: Analyzes article structure to identify optimal illustration points
• 10+ Illustration Types: flowchart, sequence, mindmap, concept, comparison, scene, metaphor...
• Extensible Style System: Light, Dark, Minimal, Cover, and custom styles
• Cover Mode: Generate high-CTR YouTube thumbnails with best practices built-in
• Multi-Platform Sizes: YouTube, WeChat, Twitter, Xiaohongshu presets
• Resume Generation: Skip already-generated images, regenerate specific ones
• Brand Customizable: Modify styles/ to apply your brand style
• Multiple Backends: Gemini API for creative visuals (2K resolution), Excalidraw for hand-drawn diagrams, Mermaid CLI for structured diagrams — all output PNG by default

What Are Skills?

Skills are prompt-based extensions for Claude Code that give Claude specialized capabilities. Unlike MCP servers that require complex setup, skills are simple markdown files that Claude loads on demand.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Claude Code CLI installed
• Bun runtime (for scripts)
• Mermaid CLI (for Mermaid diagrams): npm install -g @mermaid-js/mermaid-cli
• Excalidraw export dependencies (optional, for Excalidraw diagrams): cd ~/.claude/skills/smart-illustrator/scripts && npm install && npx playwright install firefox
• Gemini API Key (optional, for creative visuals): https://aistudio.google.com/apikey

Option A: Manual Installation (Recommended)

# Clone to Claude Code Skills directory
git clone https://github.com/axtonliu/smart-illustrator.git ~/.claude/skills/smart-illustrator

Option B: Copy Individual Files

# If you only want the skill without scripts
cp -r smart-illustrator/SKILL.md ~/.claude/skills/smart-illustrator/
cp -r smart-illustrator/styles ~/.claude/skills/smart-illustrator/

Usage

Basic Usage

# Analyze article and auto-generate illustrations (default)
/smart-illustrator path/to/article.md

# Output prompts only, don't auto-generate images
/smart-illustrator path/to/article.md --prompt-only

# Specify style (loads from styles/ directory)
/smart-illustrator path/to/article.md --style light     # Light style (default)
/smart-illustrator path/to/article.md --style dark      # Dark tech style
/smart-illustrator path/to/article.md --style minimal   # Minimal style

# List available styles
/smart-illustrator --list-styles

# Without cover image
/smart-illustrator path/to/article.md --no-cover

# Specify number of illustrations
/smart-illustrator path/to/article.md --count 5

Parameters

Illustration Count Guidelines

Output Files

article.md                    # Original
article-image.md              # Article with illustrations (main output)
article-cover.png             # Cover image (16:9)
article-image-01.png          # Content illustration (3:4)
article-image-02.png
article-image-03.png

Manual Script Usage

generate-image.ts (Single Image)

export GEMINI_API_KEY=your_key

# From prompt text
npx -y bun ~/.claude/skills/smart-illustrator/scripts/generate-image.ts \
  --prompt "A concept diagram showing..." \
  --output image.png

# From prompt file
npx -y bun ~/.claude/skills/smart-illustrator/scripts/generate-image.ts \
  --prompt-file prompt.md \
  --output image.png

batch-generate.ts (Batch Generation)

export GEMINI_API_KEY=your_key

npx -y bun ~/.claude/skills/smart-illustrator/scripts/batch-generate.ts \
  --config slides.json \
  --output-dir ./images \
  --prefix SKILL_01

**Resume Gene