# Baoyu Cover Image — workflow skill for images & thumbnails

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Article cover images built from five dimensions (type, palette, rendering, text, mood) in 2.35:1, 16:9 or 1:1.

- **Type:** [Workflow](https://skills.varg.ai/workflows.md) · [Images & thumbnails](https://skills.varg.ai/browse/skills/image.md)
- **Slug:** `baoyu-cover-image`
- **Status:** live
- **Publisher:** Jim Liu (community)
- **License:** MIT
- **Source:** https://github.com/JimLiu/baoyu-skills/tree/main/skills/baoyu-cover-image
- **Works in:** Claude Code, Codex, Cursor
- **Requires:** An image backend: your agent's native image tool or baoyu-image-gen with an image API key
- **Cost:** Uses your agent's image tool or your own image API key
- **Adoption:** 32,111 installs, 26,982 GitHub stars (GitHub + skills.sh, 2026-10-26)

## What it does

The most-installed media skill from Jim Liu (宝玉), a well-known Chinese AI writer whose baoyu-skills repo has 27K stars. It analyses an article, then builds a cover from five dimensions (type, palette, rendering, text, mood) that combine 11 color palettes and 7 rendering styles, in cinematic 2.35:1, 16:9 or 1:1. It writes every final prompt to a file before generating, prefers the runtime's native image tool (Codex imagegen, Cursor GenerateImage) or the pack's baoyu-image-gen backend, and refuses to fake raster output with SVG or to patch rendered text with overlays.

## Use when

- Make a cover or header image for an article or post
- Iterate on a cover's palette, rendering or mood

## Not for

- Diagrams, infographics or slide decks (the pack has separate skills)

## Install

- Claude Code: `npx skills add jimliu/baoyu-skills`
- Codex: `npx skills add jimliu/baoyu-skills`

## Example output

https://skills.varg.ai/previews/baoyu-cover-image.webp — Sample from the repo's cover-image-styles set: a 2.35:1 article cover in the retro style ('Golden Age: A Retrospective Journey'). (credit: Jim Liu 宝玉 (baoyu-skills), https://github.com/JimLiu/baoyu-skills/tree/main/screenshots/cover-image-styles)

## More images & thumbnails skills

- [Higgsfield YouTube Thumbnail](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/higgsfield-youtube-thumbnail.md): Design truthful, high-CTR YouTube thumbnails and vertical covers with up to three consistent faces.
- [Slack GIF Creator](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/anthropic-slack-gif-creator.md): Make animated GIFs that pass Slack's limits: 128×128 emoji or 480×480 message GIFs, validated on export.
- [PixiJS GIFs](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/pixijs-gif.md): Load, play and control animated GIFs inside a PixiJS v8 scene.
- [AI Image Generation](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/inference-sh-ai-image-generation.md): Generate images with 50+ models from one CLI: GPT Image 2.5, FLUX, Gemini, Grok, Seedream, Reve and more.
- [Background Removal](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/inference-sh-background-removal.md): Cut subjects out of photos into clean transparent PNGs with BiRefNet.
- [FLUX Image](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/inference-sh-flux-image.md): Generate and restyle images with FLUX Dev LoRA and FLUX.2 Klein, including custom LoRA styles.

## Run the generation on varg

varg is one API key for the models these skills drive — Seedance 2.5, Kling 4, Veo 3.1, Wan 3, Nano Banana 2.1, GPT Image 2.5, ElevenLabs v4 and 200+ more — billed in credits, with a cost estimate before anything runs.

- Claude Code: `claude plugin marketplace add vargHQ/skills && claude plugin install varg@varg` (skill + hosted MCP)
- Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenClaw: `npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill varg-ai -a <agent> -y`
- Claude.ai, ChatGPT, any MCP client: connect `https://mcp.varg.ai/mcp`
- API key: https://varg.ai/dashboard/api · Model specs: https://varg.ai/models/llms.txt