Paper Signal Studio

Turn photos, ideas, and research into beautiful editorial visuals with Codex or Claude Code.

Made with one shared paper-and-ink system and four compositions chosen for the subject. Click any image for the full result.

Quick start

npx skills add jiahuiqu17/paper-signal

Codex Desktop: end-to-end verified · Claude Code: Skill-compatible · Agent Skills · MIT

Then open a fresh task and ask:

Use $paper-signal-art-director to restyle this photo as a tactile minimal-zine
poster. Preserve the subject, save the final prompt, and inspect the bitmap.

Works as a standard Skill in Codex, Claude Code, and other compatible clients. Final image generation depends on the image tools available in your host; see the verified support levels.

简体中文 · See how it works · Compatibility · Contributing

Why it is more than a style prompt

The simple promise is better-looking editorial imagery. Underneath, Paper Signal protects the things a style prompt often loses:

• the subject — identity, architecture, object shape, crop, and exact values;
• the visual logic — composition follows the content instead of one template;
• the craft — paper, ink, halftone, type, and colour behave as one physical system;
• the result — the real bitmap is inspected, corrected, and saved with its prompt.

Paper Signal keeps the whole production chain inspectable:

brief → protect the subject → route subject and composition → art direction
      → save the exact prompt → native raster generation → inspect the bitmap
      → targeted correction → validated project

For factual posts it can also keep an evidence record and write natural caption copy. For a single photograph or idea, it stays compact and focuses on the image.

What makes it different

See docs/comparison.md for a respectful scope comparison with GC Minimal Zine Poster, baoyu-xhs-images, Anthropic Canvas Design, and one-off prompts.

Before / after: style without losing the subject

The four Edinburgh images remain the finished-work hero. The compact block below tests a different claim: whether a print transfer can change the material reading without replacing the person or object. Each pair shows a repository-generated fictional edit target followed by the selected Paper Signal result.

The full portrait and object cases include the source-generation prompt, edit target, preservation record, exact transfer prompt, manifest, selected bitmap, asset hashes, and observation-based QA. The README loads only 600 × 800 WebP previews; click any image for the full PNG.

Installation and compatibility

Choose a host

The Quick Start command is interactive. To target a host explicitly:

npx skills add jiahuiqu17/paper-signal --agent codex
npx skills add jiahuiqu17/paper-signal --agent claude-code

Select the full paper-signal entry point or one of the three specialist skills. The repository also contains a Codex plugin manifest at .codex-plugin/plugin.json.

The short compatibility line near the top means the Skill format loads on those hosts—not that every host exposes the same image tools. Format compatibility, tool availability, and tested rendering are separate levels. See the maintained compatibility matrix.

Install an immutable release

Each tagged release includes a deterministic skills-only ZIP and SHA256SUMS. It omits the large visual examples while retaining the four skills, schemas, license, and essential documentation.

gh release download --repo jiahuiqu17/paper-signal \
  --pattern "paper-signal-skills-*.zip" --pattern SHA256SUMS
shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS
unzip paper-signal-skills-v*.zip
npx skills add ./paper-signal-v*

Local Codex development

Clone the repository, then link the skill folders into Codex:

git clone https://github.com/jiahuiqu17/paper-signal.git
cd paper-signal

for skill in paper-signal paper-signal-art-director paper-signal-series paper-signal-audit; do
  ln -s "$PWD/skills/$skill" "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills/$skill"
done

Inspect an existing destination before replacing it. Open a new task after installation so the skill inventory reloads.

Requirements

• an Agent Skills-compatible host;
• image inspection for references and visual QA;
• a runtime-native bitmap generator for rendering;
• Python 3.10 or later only for project and repository tools.

Paper Signal bundles no image model, API key, tracking code, or third-party runtime. In Codex it uses built-in ImageGen.

Personalise without forking

Copy the preference template into a project or user config location:

mkdir -p .paper-signal
cp skills/paper-signal/assets/PREFERENCES.example.md \
  .paper-signal/PREFERENCES.md

You can set preferred paper processes, anchor inks, aspect ratio, text burden, caption voice, source-label policy, and banned motifs. Current-request instructions and subject-preservation rules always take precedence. See preferences.md.

Included skills

Example requests:

Use $paper-signal-art-director to turn this rainy Edinburgh street into a quiet
minimal-zine poster. Preserve the street geometry, use a panorama strip and one
cyanotype plate, save the final prompt, and generate the bitmap.