make-gif

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

This skill should be used when the user asks to "make a GIF", "convert to GIF", "create a GIF from this video", "export as GIF", "turn this clip into a GIF", "make an animated GIF", or "gif this".

5installs

Sourcegupsammy/claudest

Added on2026-05-25

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add gupsammy/claudest make-gif

SKILL.md Content

View Translation Comparison →

Video GIF

Convert a video clip to a high-quality GIF using the mandatory 2-pass palette workflow.

Single-pass GIF always produces banding and color artifacts. The palettegen → paletteuse pipeline analyzes the actual clip to build an optimal 256-color palette, then renders with it. Never skip this.

Process

1. Gather parameters

Ask for any not already provided in the request:

Start time — default
```
0
```
Duration or end time — required; warn if >30s (file size grows rapidly)
Width — default
```
480
```
px; height auto-calculated to preserve aspect ratio
FPS — default
```
15
```
; higher = smoother + larger file

If the user asks about aspect ratio or the source has unusual dimensions, probe first:

bash

ffprobe -v quiet -print_format json -show_streams "$INPUT" | \
  python3 -c "import json,sys; s=[s for s in json.load(sys.stdin)['streams'] if s['codec_type']=='video'][0]; print(s['width'], 'x', s['height'])"

2. Build the 2-pass command

Pass 1 — generate optimized palette:

bash

ffmpeg -ss $START -t $DURATION -i "$INPUT" \
  -vf "fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos,palettegen=stats_mode=full" \
  /tmp/palette_$$.png -y

Pass 2 — render GIF using palette:

bash

ffmpeg -ss $START -t $DURATION -i "$INPUT" -i /tmp/palette_$$.png \
  -lavfi "fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos [x]; [x][1:v] paletteuse=dither=bayer:bayer_scale=5" \
  "$OUTPUT" -y

Use

$$

(shell PID) in the palette temp path to avoid collisions with concurrent runs.

3. Confirm before running

Show the full 2-pass command and estimated output path. Add a size warning if

duration × fps

is large (rough heuristic: >20s at 15fps at 480px → likely >10MB).

4. Run both passes, then clean up

bash

rm -f /tmp/palette_$$.png

Report output path and file size.

Key Decisions

```
stats_mode=full
```
on palettegen analyzes the entire clip — not just the first frame — for better palette coverage across motion.
```
dither=bayer:bayer_scale=5
```
is the sweet spot for photographic content. Use
```
dither=none
```
for flat-color content (illustrations, slides, screen recordings with solid backgrounds).
```
-ss
```
placed before
```
-i
```
uses container-level fast seek. Apply to both passes for consistent start points and dramatically faster seeks on long source files.
```
flags=lanczos
```
on scale gives sharper downsampling than the default
```
bilinear
```
.
To control loop count, add
```
-loop $N
```
to pass 2:
```
0
```
= infinite,
```
1
```
= play once,
```
2
```
= play twice.

make-gif

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Video GIF

Process

1. Gather parameters

2. Build the 2-pass command

3. Confirm before running

4. Run both passes, then clean up

Key Decisions