ASCII art
Turn any image into text art. A skill you install into your AI agent.
Category
Skills
Year
2026
ASCII art
This skill teaches your AI coding agent to convert images into ASCII art.
Turn any photo into black-and-white or full-colour ASCII art. Includes the conversion script and agent instructions, so the results come out crisp without needing extra tweaking.
Why ASCII is back
A tiny experiment inspired by a very old idea. ASCII art has been around for decades, but AI has made it relevant again. Since AI works naturally with text, characters can now become surprisingly beautiful images. Have fun creating!
Install
The installer walks you through which agent to add it to. It works anywhere that reads the skills format: Claude Code in the terminal, VS Code, or the desktop app, Cowork, Cursor, and others.
npx skills add uffingoff/ascii-art
How to use it
Install it with the command above.
Open your AI agent.
Upload an image and ask for ASCII art.
Pick plain or colour. The agent runs the skill and hands back the result.
Works best on
High-contrast subjects. Faces, logos, single objects, silhouettes. Busy low-contrast photos turn to mush, so start simple.
Why it exists
An experiment in turning a prompt into a reusable skill. Alongside the prompt is a working script that solves a task AI agents don't consistently handle by themselves.