Image Generate

Image Generate

Turns a text prompt into an image file on disk — no chat UI, scriptable into any pipeline — by driving the bundled, stdlib-only scripts/image_generate.py. Backends are swappable via --provider so the capability is not locked to one vendor's pricing or availability.

Implements spec/tools/image-generation/<canonical_language>.md, resolved in the target repository (the plugin ships no spec/ tree). When the target repo carries no such spec — a consumer install without the hub corpus — apply the provider-neutral requirements inlined in this body (provider swappability, consent gate, deterministic file output) as the fallback baseline. Per-provider details live in the hub's spec/design/flux-image-generation/ and spec/design/gemini-image-generation/. Where this skill and a resolvable spec disagree, the spec wins.

Why this is a skill, not an agent

• Operator-invoked slash command. Reached as /nolte-media:image-generate with a prompt, a provider, and a target path; the operator drives it directly rather than a parent dispatching a fire-and-forget worker.
• Mid-flow confirmation is part of the contract. Some providers surface a one-time data/licence notice the operator must acknowledge, and an existing target file must not be overwritten without confirmation. Those are interactive gates an agent's structured-report shape can't carry.
• The result flows back into the conversation. Written image and sidecar paths land in the operator's context so the next step (vectorising via png-to-transparent-svg, embedding) can follow inline.
• Counter-dimension: the generation itself is a single deterministic script call; that engine is isolated in the bundled script, while the load-bearing dimensions (operator invocation, the acknowledgement/overwrite gates) make this a skill.

German trigger phrases

• „erzeuge ein Bild aus diesem Prompt", „generiere ein Hero-Bild / Icon", „rendere diesen Prompt als PNG", „mach aus dem graphic-prompt-generator-Dokument ein Bild"

Providers

Inputs

• A prompt: inline --prompt, a --prompt-file, or a --from-prompt-doc graphic-prompt-generator document (--variant light|dark selects a section).
• A target path (--out), always explicit — never a silent default.
• The selected provider's credentials in the environment (none for pollinations).

Operations

1. run

Generate one image (or n) from the resolved prompt to the target path.

1. Resolve prompt, provider, and path. Default provider is cloudflare. If --out is missing, ask the operator — never invent a default.

2. Pre-flight obvious failures in conversation. If the provider's credentials are unset, relay the script's setup hint and stop. If the target file exists, confirm overwrite before passing --force.

3. Run the bundled engine:

   python3 "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/image-generate/scripts/image_generate.py" \
       --provider <cloudflare|pollinations|gemini> --prompt "<prompt>" --out <path> \
       [--from-prompt-doc <doc> --variant <light|dark>] [-n <N>] [--seed <S>] \
       [--width <W> --height <H>] [--force]
   

   On the first use of a provider that has a notice (pollinations, gemini), the script prints a one-time disclaimer and requires acknowledgement; relay it and only pass --accept-data-policy once the operator has explicitly acknowledged it (a SHA-256 digest is persisted per provider, so they are not re-prompted until the notice text changes).

4. Report the result. On success, report each written image path and its <image>.meta.json sidecar (which records provider, model, source, prompt, timestamp, mime_type). On a non-zero exit, relay the script's actionable message and the exit code (3 = quota/rate-limit or billing-required, 4 = auth failure, 1 = other, 2 = usage).

Hard rules

• Never disable Pollinations' private=true — it is hard-coded in the script to keep prompts and images out of the public feed; do not work around it.
• Never pass --accept-data-policy before the operator has seen and acknowledged the provider's notice.
• Never pass --force to overwrite an existing file without explicit operator confirmation in the same turn.
• Never pass any provider's API key/token on the command line or echo it into the conversation; credentials travel only through environment variables.
• Never retry automatically on an HTTP 429 / billing-required (limit: 0) — surface the message and stop.
• For confidential or commercial work, prefer cloudflare (Cloudflare grants output ownership + FLUX.1-schnell is Apache-2.0, no feed) over pollinations (Terms grant no explicit output licence — they defer to the model's licence — and private=true is feed-opt-out only, not a non-storage guarantee).

Gotchas

• Pollinations returns JPEG. Use a .jpg target to avoid the extension/MIME-mismatch warning (the image is still written either way).
• Per-provider, digest-versioned consent. Acks live at $XDG_STATE_HOME/nolte-shared/image-generate/<provider>/ack; each provider is acknowledged independently, and a changed notice re-prompts automatically.
• n>1 writes <stem>-1, <stem>-2, … with one sidecar each; the prompt is identical across all.
• Cloudflare needs both CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN (scope: Workers AI) and CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID.
• ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} is load-bearing — don't "simplify" it to a repo-relative path. The bundled script lives in the installed plugin directory, not the consumer repo's working tree; ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} resolves to the plugin root in every context (marketplace install and claude --plugin-dir . dogfooding). A bare skills/image-generate/scripts/… path only works inside claude-shared itself and breaks the skill in every consumer repo. Data paths (--out, --from-prompt-doc) stay relative to the consumer's working directory — only the script path is plugin-rooted.

Examples

• Read examples/01-cloudflare-default.md for the default free-tier path (Cloudflare token + account id → PNG).
• Read examples/02-pollinations-disclaimer.md for the auth-free path and the public-feed/licence disclaimer.
• Read examples/03-from-prompt-doc.md for rendering a graphic-prompt-generator document's Dark-Mode section.