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Make Gif

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make-gif

Make Gif is an Agent Skill for documents published in the gupsammy/Claudest repository on GitHub: a SKILL.md instruction file an AI agent can load to do this task.

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".

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QUICK START

How to use this skill

Bring this guide into your coding agent with a prompt tailored to the tool you use.

  1. Open your project in Codex.
  2. Copy and paste the prompt below.
  3. Review files and risks before approving any action.
Prompt to paste
Inspect the Agent Skill at https://github.com/gupsammy/Claudest/blob/HEAD/plugins/claude-content/skills/make-gif/SKILL.md and all supporting files. Report provenance, permissions, scripts, dependencies, and security risks. Propose an exact installation into .agents/skills/make-gif, but wait for my approval before writing files or running scripts.

Copying this prompt does not install or run the skill. Review third-party files before use.

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 480px; 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:

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:

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:

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

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.