snipgrapher

What This Skill Does

The snipgrapher skill empowers OpenClaw to transform plain source code into professional, high-quality images ready for documentation, blog posts, or social media. It serves as an interface for the snipgrapher NPM utility, enabling the agent to handle the entire lifecycle of code visualization—from initial configuration and theme setup to batch rendering large sets of examples. By abstracting the complexities of headless browser rendering and design settings, the skill ensures that all code outputs remain consistent, visually appealing, and brand-aligned.

Installation

To begin using this skill, ensure you have the OpenClaw environment initialized. Run the following command in your terminal:

clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/mcollina/snipgrapher

Once installed, consult rules/setup-and-configuration.md to select your preferred executable. It is highly recommended to initialize a project configuration file to store your stylistic preferences, such as font families, color themes, and padding, before generating your first image. Use npx snipgrapher --init to create the default scaffolding.

Use Cases

• Technical Documentation: Automate the creation of consistent code examples for README files or Wiki pages.
• Content Creation: Generate social media-ready images directly from your IDE's development branch.
• Changelog Enhancements: Highlight specific code patches in a readable, eye-catching format for release notes.
• Portfolio Building: Showcase clean, aesthetic snippets in personal dev blogs or design portfolios.

Example Prompts

1. "Use snipgrapher to render the function in src/utils/auth.js using the 'dracula' profile and save it to the /docs/assets folder."
2. "Set up a batch rendering task for all files in the /examples directory. Use the default configuration but ensure all images have a border radius of 8px."
3. "Watch the lib/core.ts file for changes and automatically regenerate the snipgrapher image every time I save."

Tips & Limitations

• Configure First: Always define a named profile in your config file. This ensures that you can reproduce identical visual styles across different projects, preventing 'style drift' in your media assets.
• Automation Friendliness: Leverage CLI flags to override configuration settings dynamically for CI/CD environments. This allows the skill to be used in automated pipelines where visual consistency is required for documentation builds.
• Performance: For batch operations, note that generating high-resolution images can be resource-intensive. If rendering hundreds of snippets, consider limiting the concurrency in your configuration.
• Limitations: Snipgrapher relies on local system resources to run headless browser instances. Ensure that your environment has the necessary dependencies for Chromium-based rendering, or errors may occur during the generation phase.