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Agent skill

Animate

by with-pebbly in with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist

Build an idle, walk, run or attack cycle from key poses, set timing that reads as motion rather than a metronome, tag it, and review it as a filmstrip.

MITAuto-check passedGame Development

Install Animate

skills CLI
$ npx skills add with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist --skill animate -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist animate --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/animate .claude/skills/animate && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
animate
GitHub stars
172
Token cost
~1.4k tokens
SKILL.md length
763 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
14
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Build an idle, walk, run or attack cycle from key poses, set timing that reads as motion rather than a metronome, tag it, and review it as a filmstrip.

  • Works in 9 steps: With a storyboard → Plan the key poses → Create the frames → …
  • A rigged sprite needs to move
  • SKILL.md covers Before you start, Procedure and Related
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Animate is an agent skill from with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist. Build an idle, walk, run or attack cycle from key poses, set timing that reads as motion rather than a metronome, tag it, and review it as a filmstrip. Use when a rigged sprite needs to move.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.4k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Game Development, covering Sprites and pixel art. It works with Model Context Protocol. The repository describes itself as: Your coding agent paints pixel art in the Aseprite window you already have open. MCP server + skills for Claude Code, omp, Codex, Gemini CLI and Cursor — draws, looks at its…. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • A rigged sprite needs to move
  • Tasks that involve Sprites and pixel art

Example prompts

  • “/animate”

Workflow steps

9 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. With a storyboard
  2. Plan the key poses
  3. Create the frames
  4. Block the key poses
  5. Look at the keys before adding in-betweens
  6. Add in-betweens
  7. Set timing
  8. Tag it
  9. Review

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit f51fe69. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Animate loads about 1.4k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 50 tokens; SKILL.md has 763 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~50
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.4k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist at commit f51fe69, republished under its MIT licence (© with-pebbly). 763 words, ~1,415 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/animate/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
animate
description
Build an idle, walk, run or attack cycle from key poses, set timing that reads as motion rather than a metronome, tag it, and review it as a filmstrip. Use when a rigged sprite needs to move.
title
Animate a cycle

Animate a cycle

Before you start

The sprite must be rigged onto named layers — see aseprite:rig. Animating a flattened sprite means redrawing every frame by hand.

Procedure

0. With a storyboard

If aseprite:concept delivered a storyboard, its panels are the key poses — the plan in step 1 is written from them, not invented. Import it once the frames exist: frame op="add" count=N-1, then reference op="import" path=… grid={columns: N, rows: 1} puts panel i on frame i. Every frame then has its own reference, and look op="compare" frame=i checks that frame against its panel — do that for each key in step 4. The PixelSpec's per-frame notes and deviations still decide what survives at this size: a storyboard can suggest a 4px jump the timing cannot carry.

1. Plan the key poses

Write them out before touching a frame. For a walk:

  1. Contact — front foot lands, back foot pushing. Widest stance.
  2. Down — weight on the front leg, body lowest.
  3. Pass — legs together, body highest. The frame everyone forgets, and its absence is why a walk looks like sliding.
  4. Up — pushing off, rising.

Then mirror for the other leg: 8 frames. A 4-frame walk uses contact and pass per leg.

Idle: 2–4 frames, a breath — chest rises a pixel, shoulders follow one frame later. Attack: anticipation, strike, hold, recover.

2. Create the frames
frame op="add" count=7

Already done if a storyboard was imported in step 0 — the import needs them.

3. Block the key poses

Move limbs by moving cels, not by redrawing:

cel op="copy" layer="arm-near" frame=1 toFrame=3
cel op="move" layer="arm-near" frame=3 dx=2 dy=-1

Redraw only where a part genuinely changes shape — a foreshortened arm, a bending knee. Do that redraw as a grid: look op="ascii" layer=… frame=… rulers=false region=… on the part in the previous key, edit the rows into the new shape, and draw kind grid them onto the new frame at the same origin. Copying the rows first keeps the part's volume from drifting, because every pixel you did not change stays exactly where it was.

4. Look at the keys before adding in-betweens
look op="filmstrip"

A vision model reads only the first frame of a GIF, so the filmstrip is the only way to actually see the motion. Check volume and height consistency here, while there are four frames to fix rather than eight. With a storyboard, look op="compare" frame=… on each key as well: the pose should match its panel before any in-between is drawn from it.

Show full SKILL.md (366 more words)Show less
5. Add in-betweens

Only once the keys read. Spacing is your easing: poses close together read slow, far apart read fast.

look op="onion" frame=3

Use onion skinning to judge an in-between against its neighbours without stepping through frames one at a time — it composites the target at full opacity over ghosted neighbours, oldest-first.

For secondary motion — a bob, a breath, a float — cel op="tween" or cel op="oscillate" fill in the in-between cels for you instead of keying each one by hand:

cel op="oscillate" layer="hair-back" fromFrame=1 toFrame=8 amplitudeY=1 period=8

Caveat: easing rounds each frame's offset to the nearest pixel, and on small amplitudes (1–2px) that rounding can make two adjacent frames land on the same value and then jump — a stutter, not a stumble. Prefer hand keys for primary motion (the walk, the strike); reach for tween/oscillate for motion nobody is meant to consciously notice.

Something that grows or shrinks on screen — a wagon coming down a road, a bird flying away — is drawn at three or four sizes by hand (far, middle, near), each a complete little sprite with all its parts, and every frame uses the nearest one. Do not compute it from a formula and re-rasterise it at each size: below about 12 px a scaled shape loses or merges its parts (the wheels vanish, the cover becomes a blob), and it changes shape from frame to frame. Before you finish, look op="preview" frame=<n> on the frames where it is largest and smallest.

6. Set timing
frame op="set_duration" durations=[150,100,100,150,150,100,100,150]

Hold contact poses longer than pass poses. Uniform timing reads mechanical no matter how good the drawings are. Typical ranges are in rules://05-animation.

7. Tag it
tag op="create" name="walk" from=1 to=8 direction="forward"

Untagged frames are unusable by a game engine. validate treats a multi-frame untagged sprite as an error.

8. Review

look op="filmstrip" again, then run through the animation checks in rules://07-review-checklist: consistent volume, consistent height, clean loop, anticipation before strong actions, light that does not move. Run validate with an expect describing the cycle — which layers live on which frames, which parts must never overlap — so the mechanical check knows what "right" means here.

rules://05-animation, rules://06-layers-and-rigging, rules://40-timing-and-spacing. For the cycle itself: rules://41-idle-and-breathing, rules://42-walk-and-run, rules://43-jump-fall-land, rules://44-attacks-and-impacts, rules://45-secondary-motion, rules://46-subpixel-animation, rules://47-top-down-animation; animals: rules://51-animal-gaits, rules://52-birds-and-flight. Their frame tables and key-pose templates come before your own invention.

© with-pebbly, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/animate of with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit f51fe69

Compare with similar skills

Animate next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Animate compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Animate this skillwith-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist172—~1.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Sprite Genaldegad/sprite-gen2.6k—~4.5kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Fal Assetsrehan-remade/universal-modder5.3k—~2kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Game Assetsglifxyz/glif-mcp-server212—~831Automated safety check: PassMIT
Scenario Game Assetsscenario-labs/skills913—~4.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Game Art PipelinePersonalJarvis/PersonalJarvis141—~566Automated safety check: PassApache-2.0

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More from with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist

All 14 skills in this repo

  • Draw

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    Draw a sprite from silhouette to finished pixels, in the order that catches mistakes while they are still cheap — block in, check the silhouette, shade, outline, verify.

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  • Export

    with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist

    Produce the files an engine actually consumes — spritesheets with atlases, GIFs, scaled PNGs — with the tags and layout the target needs.

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  • Fix

    with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist

    Change a sprite that already exists — the user's own work or your earlier output — without destroying what is already right.

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  • New

    with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist

    Create a new Aseprite document with the right canvas size, colour mode, palette and layer structure, so later work does not have to fight the setup.

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  • Palette

    with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist

    Pick a palette that fits the request, build hue-shifted ramps, or clean up a sprite whose colours have sprawled.

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  • Review

    with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist

    Run the mechanical checks and the by-eye checks, then report what you found with evidence instead of declaring success.

    172 GitHub stars~1k tokensUpdated today
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Works with

Categories

Questions about Animate

What does Animate do?

Build an idle, walk, run or attack cycle from key poses, set timing that reads as motion rather than a metronome, tag it, and review it as a filmstrip. Animate is an agent skill from with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist. Build an idle, walk, run or attack cycle from key poses, set timing that reads as motion rather than a metronome, tag it, and review it as a filmstrip.

When should I use Animate?

Animate fits situations like: A rigged sprite needs to move; tasks that involve Sprites and pixel art.

How do I install Animate in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist --skill animate -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/animate in with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist) into .claude/skills/animate in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Animate in Codex?

Run `npx skills add with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist --skill animate -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/animate in with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist) into .agents/skills/animate in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Animate in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist --skill animate -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/animate, .gemini/skills/animate, .github/skills/animate and .opencode/skills/animate in your project.

What does Animate need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Animate is instructions for the agent only.

Does Animate access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Animate safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Animate use?

Animate is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Animate use?

About 1.4k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 5.7k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Animate?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Animate: Sprite Gen (aldegad/sprite-gen, 2.6k stars), Fal Assets (rehan-remade/universal-modder, 5.3k stars), Game Assets (glifxyz/glif-mcp-server, 212 stars) and Scenario Game Assets (scenario-labs/skills, 913 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Animate?

with-pebbly (a GitHub organization) maintains it in with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist, which has 172 GitHub stars. The repository holds 14 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 8, 2026.

Source: with-pebbly/aseprite-ai-artist on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.