# Markdown Illustrator > Use when the user references a Markdown file and wants one hero, cover, keynote-opener, visual-digest, or illustration prompt derived from it, including whiteboard, blackboard, or named image-model styling. Do not trigger for image generation itself or general Markdown summarization. - Skill: `codebeltnet/markdown-illustrator` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 6 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add codebeltnet/markdown-illustrator` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/codebeltnet/markdown-illustrator/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Design & Media - Author: codebeltnet (https://skillmd.com/u/codebeltnet) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/codebeltnet/markdown-illustrator --- # Markdown Illustrator ![Markdown Illustrator](assets/hero.png) This skill reads a markdown file and answers directly in chat with one visualization-focused Visual Brief plus one final prompt compiled to be concrete, readable, and diffusion-ready. ## Critical - Keep the workflow narrow by default: one document-wide visual interpretation, one shared summary, one final prompt, direct chat response. - Use the Visual Brief as the anchor for the final prompt. - Default to best-effort reasoning across diffusers. Only become narrower or model-specific when the user explicitly asks. - Treat final prompt generation like prompt compilation: preserve intent, but strengthen clarity, structure, physical grounding, and renderability. - Do not turn visual strategy into a questionnaire. Infer a small set of visual defaults and proceed unless the user explicitly asks to steer them. - Default to de-duplicated composition. Show each major concept, phase, label, callout, panel, or document fragment once unless the user explicitly asks for repetition, comparison, or multi-panel variation. ## Output Contract Return this structure directly in chat: ```markdown ## Visual Brief **Subject:** [one-sentence description of what the document is truly about] **Audience:** [who the document is for] **Core narrative:** [the tension, movement, or transformation inside the document] **Visual opportunity:** [the most compelling scene, metaphor, or spatial idea to visualize] **Mood:** [the emotional tone the image should carry] **Must-show elements:** [3-6 concrete visual anchors that belong in the image] **Avoid:** [things that would misrepresent or weaken the image] ## Final Prompt [one production-ready prompt paragraph] ``` The Visual Brief is the anchor. The final prompt is the best single visual interpretation of that shared meaning. ## Workflow Follow the documented procedure in this file in order: `Reading the Markdown` -> `Writing the Visual Brief` -> `Inferring Visual Strategy` -> `Compiling the Final Prompt`. 1. Read the referenced markdown file for meaning, not for headings. 2. Distill the whole document into a Visual Brief optimized for visualization. 3. Infer a compact visual strategy from the request and document without asking follow-up questions. 4. Generate one best-effort final prompt from that summary and strategy. 5. Return the result directly in chat. 6. If the user explicitly asked for constraints such as `Flux`, `photorealistic`, `editorial illustration`, `16:9`, `avoid people`, `whiteboard`, or `blackboard`, honor them inside the final prompt without turning the interaction into a selection flow. ## Reading the Markdown Extract: - the real subject of the document - the intended audience - the central transformation, conflict, or promise - recurring symbols, systems, environments, or objects - the emotional energy the image should carry Do not mirror every section. Distill the document into one image-worthy idea. Ignore headings that are structural only, such as `Table of Contents`, `References`, or appendices, unless the user explicitly wants them reflected. ## Writing the Visual Brief Write the summary for visualization, not for literary analysis. - **Subject** should identify what the image is fundamentally about. - **Audience** should clarify how polished, technical, aspirational, or educational the image should feel. - **Core narrative** should name the movement or tension, such as migration, orchestration, discovery, simplification, growth, launch, or coordination. - **Visual opportunity** should identify the strongest scene or metaphor, not a style label. - **Mood** should guide lighting, composition energy, and texture. - **Must-show elements** should name only the elements that materially improve recognition and fidelity. - **Avoid** should protect against misleading clichés, irrelevant detail, or flat literalism. ## Inferring Visual Strategy Infer these dimensions silently. Do not present them as a menu. - **Intent**: choose `hero`, `digest`, `diagram`, or `cover`. - Use `hero` for requests such as `hero image`, `breathtaking`, `cinematic`, `launch`, `raise interest`, or when no stronger signal exists. - Use `digest` for requests such as `digest`, `overview`, `summary`, `onboarding`, or `explain`. - Use `diagram` for requests such as `diagram`, `systems`, `process`, `architecture`, `workflow`, or `pipeline`. - Use `cover` for requests such as `cover image`, `keynote opener`, `poster`, or `editorial cover`. - **Visual treatment**: preserve explicit user styles such as `whiteboard`, `blackboard`, `scientific`, `hand-drawn`, `isometric`, or `minimal line art`. If the user gives no style signal, default to `cinematic editorial`. - For `whiteboard` and `blackboard`, preserve the physical medium but do not keep every mark monochrome. Bias toward a mostly black-marker or white-chalk base with a small accent palette for emphasis marks such as arrows, checkmarks, key icons, circles, highlights, or flow traces. - **Abstraction level**: choose `literal`, `balanced`, or `concept-led`. - Use `concept-led` for `wow`, `hero`, `cinematic`, `breathtaking`, `desirable`, or `raise interest`. - Use `balanced` for `digest`, `overview`, `onboarding`, `educational`, or `systems`. - Use `literal` only when the user explicitly asks for faithful, exact, or direct process depiction. - Default to `concept-led` for `hero` and `cover`, and `balanced` for `digest` and `diagram`. - **Label density**: choose `none`, `minimal`, `light`, or `academic`. - Use `none` or `minimal` for `hero`, `cinematic`, `minimal text`, or `infographic-first`. - Use `academic` for `scientific`, `textbook`, `educational diagram`, or explicit labeling requests. - Otherwise default to `minimal`. - **Aspect ratio**: prefer wide compositions. - Honor an explicit user ratio such as `16:9`, `3:2`, `4:3`, or `1:1`. - Otherwise default to `16:9` for hero, cover, cinematic, keynote, and most digest requests. - Use `3:2` when the composition feels more editorial, poster-like, or object-centered and slightly less panoramic framing improves clarity. - Avoid defaulting to `1:1` unless the user explicitly asks for it. Keep the output contract unchanged: always return both `Visual Brief` and `Final Prompt` unless the user explicitly asks for prompt-only output. ## Compiling the Final Prompt Write one vivid prompt paragraph that another agent or human can paste into a diffuser. Default behavior: - Optimize for broad diffuser compatibility. - Prefer natural language over vendor-specific syntax. - Convert abstract ideas into concrete visual elements. Represent concepts as visible objects, scenes, marks, layers, flows, or diagram components. - Be specific about the scene, relationships, and visual anchors when that specificity strengthens the image. - Favor one memorable visual concept over a crowded checklist. - Use best-effort reasoning to choose the strongest visual treatment for the document. Compiler rules: - Enforce strong composition. Prefer clear spatial structure such as `on the left`, `in the center`, and `on the right` when useful. - Show transformation explicitly. If the document is about change, process, or reasoning, visualize it through arrows, flows, transitions, intermediate stages, or layered progression. - Use the inferred strategy to bias the image strongly instead of asking for clarification. - `hero` and `cover`: prioritize spectacle, memorability, atmosphere, premium composition, and one dominant visual idea over procedural completeness. - `digest`: prioritize readability, overview, and a satisfying big-picture synthesis without turning the image into a wall of cards. - `diagram`: prioritize system legibility, visual flow, and structural clarity without becoming text-heavy. - `concept-led`: prefer one striking scene or metaphor that captures the document's meaning, even if not every process step is shown literally. - `balanced` or `literal`: keep more visible process fidelity, but still avoid sterile box-and-arrow overload. - Prefer one authoritative artifact over repeated fragments. If the image resembles a document, diagram, scientific plate, dashboard, or infographic, bias strongly toward one clean instance of each structural element rather than many similar panels or echoed blocks. - Add cognitive structure when relevant, but use embedded text sparingly. Prefer arrows, icons, blocks, and symbolic grouping over text-heavy diagrams because image models often render words poorly. - If labels or annotations are truly necessary, keep them very short, secondary, and non-critical to success. Prefer one-to-three-word phrases over readable sentences or dense copy. - Ground the image in a physical medium when appropriate. If the chosen treatment benefits from a medium such as whiteboard, chalkboard, blueprint, or another concrete surface, describe material details like marker strokes, chalk dust, lighting, texture, and small imperfections. - For `whiteboard` and `blackboard` treatments, describe selective accent colors explicitly. Keep the medium legible and authentic, but use a restrained accent set such as red, blue, yellow, or green for emphasis marks instead of rendering every icon, arrow, checkmark, or callout in plain black marker or white chalk. - Steer the composition toward a wide frame by default. Prefer `16:9` unless `3:2` clearly better supports the scene; avoid implying `1:1` unless the user explicitly asked for square output. - Control complexity aggressively. Keep one dominant idea, one obvious focal path, and one readable hierarchy. - Add negative constraints directly into the prompt to prevent failure modes, using phrases like `no clutter`, `no chaos`, `no unnecessary elements`, `clean composition`, and `intentional layout` where appropriate. - Add anti-repetition constraints by default, especially for structured visuals. Use phrases such as `no duplicated sections`, `no repeated bullets`, `no repeated steps`, `no echoed callouts`, `no mirrored panels`, `one authoritative page or diagram`, and `one instance per concept` unless the user explicitly asked for repetition. - When text rendering is a risk, add a direct steer such as `no gibberish text`, `no fake words`, `no dense paragraphs`, or `minimal legible labels only if essential`. - Describe what is seen, not what is implied. Replace conceptual wording with observable visual detail. - Preserve the user's meaning. Improve execution, not intent. Output rule: - Output a single refined prompt only under `## Final Prompt`, with no extra explanation inside that section.