Make Gif
- 34 installs
- 269 repo stars
- Updated June 11, 2026
- gupsammy/claudest
Turn a video clip into a sharp, shareable animated GIF with ffmpeg’s mandatory 2-pass palette workflow.
About
make-gif is an agent skill for solo builders who need dependable video-to-GIF exports without washed-out gradients or banding. It encodes the rule that single-pass GIF encoding is unacceptable: the agent must run palette generation on the trimmed clip, then render with paletteuse. When a user says “gif this” or “export as GIF,” the skill prompts for timing and sizing defaults, probes unusual aspect ratios with ffprobe when needed, and assembles the exact ffmpeg commands. It fits indie demos, changelog loops, and social snippets where you already have an MP4 or screen recording and want a lightweight animated asset. Shell access is limited to ffprobe and ffmpeg via allowed Bash patterns, keeping the workflow repeatable in Claude Code-style environments without guessing codec flags.
- Mandatory 2-pass palettegen → paletteuse pipeline to avoid single-pass banding and color artifacts
- Collects start time, duration/end, width (default 480px), and FPS (default 15) via AskUserQuestion when missing
- Warns when clips exceed ~30s because GIF file size grows quickly
- Optional ffprobe + Python one-liner to read source width/height before scaling
- Uses Lanczos scaling and stats_mode=full palette generation for optimal 256-color palettes
Make Gif by the numbers
- 34 all-time installs (skills.sh)
- Ranked #949 of 1,335 Generative Media skills by installs in the Skillselion catalog
- Security screen: LOW risk (skills.sh audit)
- Data as of Aug 4, 2026 (Skillselion catalog sync)
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| Installs | 34 |
|---|---|
| repo stars | ★ 269 |
| Security audit | 3 / 3 scanners passed |
| Last updated | June 11, 2026 |
| Repository | gupsammy/claudest ↗ |
What it does
Turn a video clip into a sharp, shareable animated GIF with ffmpeg’s mandatory 2-pass palette workflow.
Files
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_$$.png -yPass 2 — render GIF using palette:
ffmpeg -ss $START -t $DURATION -i "$INPUT" -i /tmp/palette_$$.png \
-lavfi "fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos [x]; [x][1:v] paletteuse=dither=bayer:bayer_scale=5" \
"$OUTPUT" -yUse $$ (shell PID) in the palette temp path to avoid collisions with concurrent runs.
3. Confirm before running
Show the full 2-pass command and estimated output path. Add a size warning if duration × fps is large (rough heuristic: >20s at 15fps at 480px → likely >10MB).
4. Run both passes, then clean up
rm -f /tmp/palette_$$.pngReport output path and file size.
Key Decisions
stats_mode=fullon palettegen analyzes the entire clip — not just the first frame — for better palette coverage across motion.dither=bayer:bayer_scale=5is the sweet spot for photographic content. Usedither=nonefor flat-color content (illustrations, slides, screen recordings with solid backgrounds).-ssplaced before-iuses container-level fast seek. Apply to both passes for consistent start points and dramatically faster seeks on long source files.flags=lanczoson scale gives sharper downsampling than the defaultbilinear.- To control loop count, add
-loop $Nto pass 2:0= infinite,1= play once,2= play twice.
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Is Make Gif safe to install?
skills.sh reports 3 of 3 security scanners passed. Review the Security Audits panel on this page before installing in production.