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:
 |
 |
| riso — the house default | clay — stop-motion plasticine |
 |
 |
| phosphor — CRT trace on glass | blueprint — draftsman linework |
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 illoPlatform-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.
- tmchow/illo-characters — community character packs ("install the blip character").
illo started life inside tmchow/agent-skills; it moved here with full git history. The old location keeps a frozen copy so existing installs don't break, but this repo is the canonical home — new versions ship only from here.
MIT © Trevin Chow — see LICENSE and
skills/illo/NOTICE for attribution of the Blot character and
bundled artwork.