✦ Talisman

Turn a codebase into a beautiful, brand-styled PDF book.

An agent playbook that reads your app and writes a polished LaTeX → PDF guide — with a designed cover, your real colors and logo, native diagrams, and a subtle branded background. Works with any coding AI agent.

$Engine$

hljs language-bash

npx skills add atexy4ba/talisman-skill

What it does · Install · Usage · How it works · Structure · Requirements

✨ What it does

Point Talisman at a repository and it produces a docs/guide/ LaTeX project that builds to a print-ready main.pdf.


🎯 Grounded in the real code	Describes what the app actually does — read from the schema, modules, and flows — not the aspirational claims in a marketing README.
🎨 On-brand	Extracts the product's real palette (even modern `oklch()` CSS), its logo, and the character of its fonts, so the document looks like it came from the product.
📐 Designed, not dumped	A full-bleed cover page, colored headings in a geometric display font, a slim branded page background, and callout boxes for notes and caveats.
🧩 Illustrated	Native TikZ diagrams — domain models, step-by-step flows, and state machines — with no Graphviz/Mermaid dependency.

Why "talisman"? A talisman is a crafted object that carries the essence of the thing it represents. This skill distills a whole codebase into a single artifact you can hold.

📦 Install

One command (recommended)

Talisman is on skills.sh. The skills CLI detects your agent and installs it in the right place automatically:

hljs language-bash

npx skills add atexy4ba/talisman-skill

That's it — works with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf, and every other agent the CLI supports. Manage it with npx skills list / update / remove, and find it any time with npx skills find talisman.

Manual / per-agent

Talisman is also just a portable playbook — plain Markdown instructions (AGENTS.md / SKILL.md) plus Python scripts and LaTeX templates, with no runtime and no agent lock-in. If you'd rather wire it in by hand, clone it:

hljs language-bash

git clone https://github.com/atexy4ba/talisman-skill.git

Agent	How to enable
Any `AGENTS.md`-aware agent (OpenAI Codex, Cursor, Jules, …)	Drop the repo in (or beside) your project — the agent auto-reads `AGENTS.md`.
Claude Code	`git clone … ~/.claude/skills/talisman`, then run `/talisman`.
Cursor	Add a rule pointing at the repo, or reference `SKILL.md` in `.cursor/rules/`.
Windsurf	Reference `SKILL.md` from `.windsurfrules`.
GitHub Copilot	Reference `SKILL.md` from `.github/copilot-instructions.md`.
Aider	`aider --read SKILL.md` (or `--read AGENTS.md`).
Anything else	Tell your agent: "Follow the Talisman workflow in `SKILL.md`."

Then just describe the deliverable — "make a branded PDF guide of how this app works" — and the agent follows the seven-phase workflow.

🚀 Usage

hljs language-text

You:    build an internal guide for this codebase, in our brand style

Agent:
  1. extracts your brand palette, logo, and fonts from the app
  2. reads the data model and features to get the content right
  3. scaffolds docs/guide/ and writes the chapters + TikZ diagrams
  4. builds the branded cover + subtle page background
  5. compiles with pdflatex and renders pages to verify visually
  → docs/guide/main.pdf

🛠️ How it works

A seven-phase workflow (full detail in SKILL.md):

1	Extract brand identity Palette from CSS (`oklch()` → hex), logo, font character.
2	Research real content Data model, lifecycle, feature modules, integration points. TOC by necessity.
3	Scaffold Copy the templates, fill the brand placeholders.
4	Write chapters Grounded in the code, with worked setup + handling use-cases.
5	Add diagrams Domain model, a flow, a state machine (TikZ).
6	Cover + background Full-bleed brand cover with the logo; faint watermark on content pages.
7	Build & verify visually Compile, then render pages to PNG and actually look.

📁 Repository structure

hljs language-graphql

talisman/
├── AGENTS.md                   # cross-agent entry point (the AGENTS.md standard)
├── SKILL.md                    # same workflow in Claude Code's skill format
├── icon.png                    # skill icon
├── scripts/
│   ├── oklch_to_hex.py         # CSS oklch() brand colors → LaTeX hex
│   └── prepare_logo.py         # webp/png logo → PNG + sample its background color
├── assets/
│   ├── preamble.tex            # branded core: fonts, palette, boxes, header, background
│   ├── main.tex                # full-bleed cover + document shell
│   └── Makefile                # 3-pass pdflatex build
└── references/
    ├── environment.md          # toolchain probing, engine/font fallbacks, error playbook
    └── diagrams.md             # TikZ recipes for the 3 diagram families + anti-collision rules

🧰 Requirements

The skill probes the environment and adapts, but the happy path wants:

Need	Tool
PDF engine	`pdflatex` (default; `lualatex`/`xelatex` only if their font runtime works)
LaTeX packages	`tikz`, `eso-pic`, `tcolorbox`, `hyperref`, `listings`, `booktabs`
Fonts (fallback)	`helvet`, Avant Garde (`pag`) — or the closest installed match
Color / logo conversion	`python3` + `Pillow` (webp/png); `rsvg-convert`/`inkscape` for svg
Visual verification	`pdftoppm` (poppler)

references/environment.md documents the fallbacks when any of these are missing.

🔧 The bundled scripts

oklch_to_hex.py — convert modern CSS colors LaTeX can't read

hljs language-bash

python3 scripts/oklch_to_hex.py 0.26624 0.15944 267.227
# oklch(0.26624 0.15944 267.227) -> #090E71  rgb(9, 14, 113)

prepare_logo.py — .webp logo → PNG + background color

hljs language-bash

python3 scripts/prepare_logo.py public/logo.webp figures/logo.png
# prints the logo's background color for the cover color-match trick

🧠 What it encodes

Beyond the happy path, the skill captures the messy realities of building LaTeX on an arbitrary machine, so future runs don't relearn them:

pdflatex-first — many installs ship a broken lualatex font runtime.
Matching the app font's character with the closest installed family when the exact webfont isn't shippable — and saying so honestly.
.webp/.svg logo conversion, and the cover trick of matching the cover fill to the logo's square so a monogram floats seamlessly.
The recurring compile bugs: reserved TikZ keywords (step, state), overfull lines from long code paths, multi-pass builds for cross-references.
Always render to PNG and look — the single most important verification step.

🤝 Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome — new diagram recipes, font-fallback mappings, and environment fixes are especially useful.

📄 License

MIT © atexy4ba

_{Works with any coding AI agent · crafted to look like it came from your product.}

✦ Talisman

Turn a codebase into a beautiful, brand-styled PDF book.

$Engine$

hljs language-bash

npx skills add atexy4ba/talisman-skill

What it does · Install · Usage · How it works · Structure · Requirements

✨ What it does

Point Talisman at a repository and it produces a docs/guide/ LaTeX project that builds to a print-ready main.pdf.


🎯 Grounded in the real code	Describes what the app actually does — read from the schema, modules, and flows — not the aspirational claims in a marketing README.
🎨 On-brand	Extracts the product's real palette (even modern `oklch()` CSS), its logo, and the character of its fonts, so the document looks like it came from the product.
📐 Designed, not dumped	A full-bleed cover page, colored headings in a geometric display font, a slim branded page background, and callout boxes for notes and caveats.
🧩 Illustrated	Native TikZ diagrams — domain models, step-by-step flows, and state machines — with no Graphviz/Mermaid dependency.

Why "talisman"? A talisman is a crafted object that carries the essence of the thing it represents. This skill distills a whole codebase into a single artifact you can hold.

📦 Install

One command (recommended)

Talisman is on skills.sh. The skills CLI detects your agent and installs it in the right place automatically:

hljs language-bash

npx skills add atexy4ba/talisman-skill

Manual / per-agent

hljs language-bash

git clone https://github.com/atexy4ba/talisman-skill.git

Agent	How to enable
Any `AGENTS.md`-aware agent (OpenAI Codex, Cursor, Jules, …)	Drop the repo in (or beside) your project — the agent auto-reads `AGENTS.md`.
Claude Code	`git clone … ~/.claude/skills/talisman`, then run `/talisman`.
Cursor	Add a rule pointing at the repo, or reference `SKILL.md` in `.cursor/rules/`.
Windsurf	Reference `SKILL.md` from `.windsurfrules`.
GitHub Copilot	Reference `SKILL.md` from `.github/copilot-instructions.md`.
Aider	`aider --read SKILL.md` (or `--read AGENTS.md`).
Anything else	Tell your agent: "Follow the Talisman workflow in `SKILL.md`."

Then just describe the deliverable — "make a branded PDF guide of how this app works" — and the agent follows the seven-phase workflow.

🚀 Usage

hljs language-text

You:    build an internal guide for this codebase, in our brand style

Agent:
  1. extracts your brand palette, logo, and fonts from the app
  2. reads the data model and features to get the content right
  3. scaffolds docs/guide/ and writes the chapters + TikZ diagrams
  4. builds the branded cover + subtle page background
  5. compiles with pdflatex and renders pages to verify visually
  → docs/guide/main.pdf

🛠️ How it works

A seven-phase workflow (full detail in SKILL.md):

1	Extract brand identity Palette from CSS (`oklch()` → hex), logo, font character.
2	Research real content Data model, lifecycle, feature modules, integration points. TOC by necessity.
3	Scaffold Copy the templates, fill the brand placeholders.
4	Write chapters Grounded in the code, with worked setup + handling use-cases.
5	Add diagrams Domain model, a flow, a state machine (TikZ).
6	Cover + background Full-bleed brand cover with the logo; faint watermark on content pages.
7	Build & verify visually Compile, then render pages to PNG and actually look.

📁 Repository structure

hljs language-graphql

talisman/
├── AGENTS.md                   # cross-agent entry point (the AGENTS.md standard)
├── SKILL.md                    # same workflow in Claude Code's skill format
├── icon.png                    # skill icon
├── scripts/
│   ├── oklch_to_hex.py         # CSS oklch() brand colors → LaTeX hex
│   └── prepare_logo.py         # webp/png logo → PNG + sample its background color
├── assets/
│   ├── preamble.tex            # branded core: fonts, palette, boxes, header, background
│   ├── main.tex                # full-bleed cover + document shell
│   └── Makefile                # 3-pass pdflatex build
└── references/
    ├── environment.md          # toolchain probing, engine/font fallbacks, error playbook
    └── diagrams.md             # TikZ recipes for the 3 diagram families + anti-collision rules

🧰 Requirements

The skill probes the environment and adapts, but the happy path wants:

Need	Tool
PDF engine	`pdflatex` (default; `lualatex`/`xelatex` only if their font runtime works)
LaTeX packages	`tikz`, `eso-pic`, `tcolorbox`, `hyperref`, `listings`, `booktabs`
Fonts (fallback)	`helvet`, Avant Garde (`pag`) — or the closest installed match
Color / logo conversion	`python3` + `Pillow` (webp/png); `rsvg-convert`/`inkscape` for svg
Visual verification	`pdftoppm` (poppler)

references/environment.md documents the fallbacks when any of these are missing.

🔧 The bundled scripts

oklch_to_hex.py — convert modern CSS colors LaTeX can't read

hljs language-bash

python3 scripts/oklch_to_hex.py 0.26624 0.15944 267.227
# oklch(0.26624 0.15944 267.227) -> #090E71  rgb(9, 14, 113)

prepare_logo.py — .webp logo → PNG + background color

hljs language-bash

python3 scripts/prepare_logo.py public/logo.webp figures/logo.png
# prints the logo's background color for the cover color-match trick

🧠 What it encodes

Beyond the happy path, the skill captures the messy realities of building LaTeX on an arbitrary machine, so future runs don't relearn them:

pdflatex-first — many installs ship a broken lualatex font runtime.
Matching the app font's character with the closest installed family when the exact webfont isn't shippable — and saying so honestly.
.webp/.svg logo conversion, and the cover trick of matching the cover fill to the logo's square so a monogram floats seamlessly.
The recurring compile bugs: reserved TikZ keywords (step, state), overfull lines from long code paths, multi-pass builds for cross-references.
Always render to PNG and look — the single most important verification step.

🤝 Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome — new diagram recipes, font-fallback mappings, and environment fixes are especially useful.

📄 License

MIT © atexy4ba

_{Works with any coding AI agent · crafted to look like it came from your product.}

talisman-skill

✦ Talisman

Turn a codebase into a beautiful, brand-styled PDF book.

✨ What it does

📦 Install

One command (recommended)

Manual / per-agent

🚀 Usage

🛠️ How it works

📁 Repository structure

🧰 Requirements

🔧 The bundled scripts

🧠 What it encodes

🤝 Contributing

📄 License

Similar Packages

talisman-skill

✦ Talisman

Turn a codebase into a beautiful, brand-styled PDF book.

✨ What it does

📦 Install

One command (recommended)

Manual / per-agent

🚀 Usage

🛠️ How it works

📁 Repository structure

🧰 Requirements

🔧 The bundled scripts

🧠 What it encodes

🤝 Contributing

📄 License

Similar Packages