by tmchow
illo skill — an AI agent skill that turns ideas and articles into original print-style editorial illustrations, starring a recurring mascot. 30+ characters packs, with ability to create your own.
# Add to your Claude Code skills
git clone https://github.com/tmchow/illo-skillillo-skill is an open-source ai agents skill for AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, and ChatGPT, built by tmchow. illo skill — an AI agent skill that turns ideas and articles into original print-style editorial illustrations, starring a recurring mascot. 30+ characters packs, with ability to create your own. It has 201 GitHub stars.
illo-skill's catalog security scan is still queued. You can run an instant dependency and prompt-injection check now with the "Scan for vulnerabilities" button above.
Clone the repository with "git clone https://github.com/tmchow/illo-skill" and add it to your Claude Code skills directory (see the Installation section above).
illo-skill is primarily written in Python. It is open-source under tmchow on GitHub, so you can review or fork the full source.
Yes. SkillsLLM lists many other AI Agents skills you can browse and compare side by side. Open the AI Agents category from the badge at the top of this page, or use the Related Skills and comparison links further down to weigh illo-skill against similar tools.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!
Unlocks once the catalog security scan passes (runs nightly).
The deep catalog scan for this skill is still queued. Run an instant dependency check now instead.
Generate original print-style editorial illustrations for articles and blogs, starring a recurring mascot that performs each idea. Each character pack carries one of ten bundled looks (riso, blueprint, woodcut, pixel, clay, manila, chalk, phosphor, enamel, gouache) or a custom style — default Blot (a deadpan ink-drop), or design your own with the built-in character builder. One-metaphor-per-image scenes with named + custom + derived palettes and reference-image character consistency. Renders through two backends: your Codex CLI (gpt-image-2 on your Codex subscription — free for subscribers, no API key) when one is installed and logged in, or OpenRouter (model-selectable: Grok Imagine, Nano Banana 2/Pro, GPT-5.4 Image 2, …) as the universal fallback.
Hand it "we replatform with zero downtime" and you get the bridge being rebuilt under live traffic:

🌐 illo-skill.com — live examples, the character gallery, and copy-paste installs.
The skill itself lives in skills/illo/ — its
README is the full developer reference
(prerequisites, API-key setup, models & cost, everything below in detail).
Same idea, different voice — four of the ten bundled looks:
Quick install — any agent. One command for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex,
Copilot, Gemini CLI, and the ~70 other runtimes the
skills CLI supports (update later with
npx skills update):
npx skills add tmchow/illo-skill --skill illo
Platform-native installs. The repo also ships a plugin/extension manifest for each major runtime, so you can install through your platform's own package manager and get managed updates:
| Platform | Install | Update |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | /plugin marketplace add tmchow/illo-skill then /plugin install illo@illo-skill |
claude plugin update illo, or enable marketplace auto-update |
| Codex | codex plugin marketplace add tmchow/illo-skill then codex plugin add illo@illo-skill |
codex plugin marketplace upgrade |
| Gemini CLI | gemini extensions install https://github.com/tmchow/illo-skill |
gemini extensions update illo |
| Copilot / GitHub CLI | gh skill install tmchow/illo-skill illo (cross-agent via --agent) |
gh skill update illo |
| Cursor | npx skills add tmchow/illo-skill --skill illo (Cursor Marketplace listing pending review) |
re-run the installer |
| Hermes | hermes skills install tmchow/illo-skill/illo |
hermes skills update illo |
| OpenClaw | openclaw skills install illo |
reinstall with the same command |
Every lane installs the same skill; releases are tagged v<version> and
the version in every manifest is kept in lockstep with
skills/illo/SKILL.md by CI.
The skill sits in skills/illo/, following the layout of the canonical
skill repos (anthropics/skills, openai/skills): a top-level skills/
folder, one directory per skill. It is deliberately not at the repo root —
installers copy the entire skill directory verbatim, so the skill dir holds
only what every install should ship. Docs-only images live in
_assets/illo/ (linked by raw URL), and repo meta stays at the root —
including the plugin manifests (.claude-plugin/, .codex-plugin/,
.cursor-plugin/, gemini-extension.json) that make the repo installable
as a native plugin on each platform.
MIT © Trevin Chow — see LICENSE and
skills/illo/NOTICE for attribution of the Blot character and
bundled artwork.