Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
npx skills add john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup --skill ascii-videogit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backupWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup/ascii-video)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup/ascii-video"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup/ascii-video.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00017 | $0.03462 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00009 | $0.01731 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00003 | $0.00692 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00002 | $0.00346 |
Grade A, and why
ascii-video scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Runs shell commandslowCapability
Expected in a hook, worth knowing in a rule or an instructions file.
Never `stderr=subprocess.PIPE` with long-running ffmpeg — buffer fills at 64KB and deadlocks. Redirect to file. See `references/troubleshooting.md`. This is a copy
98% identical to ascii-video — 7 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 242 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
ASCII Video Production Pipeline
When to use
Use when users request: ASCII video, text art video, terminal-style video, character art animation, retro text visualization, audio visualizer in ASCII, converting video to ASCII art, matrix-style effects, or any animated ASCII output.
What's inside
Production pipeline for ASCII art video — any format. Converts video/audio/images/generative input into colored ASCII character video output (MP4, GIF, image sequence). Covers: video-to-ASCII conversion, audio-reactive music visualizers, generative ASCII art animations, hybrid video+audio reactive, text/lyrics overlays, real-time terminal rendering.
Creative Standard
This is visual art. ASCII characters are the medium; cinema is the standard.
Before writing a single line of code, articulate the creative concept. What is the mood? What visual story does this tell? What makes THIS project different from every other ASCII video? The user's prompt is a starting point — interpret it with creative ambition, not literal transcription.
First-render excellence is non-negotiable. The output must be visually striking without requiring revision rounds. If something looks generic, flat, or like "AI-generated ASCII art," it is wrong — rethink the creative concept before shipping.
Go beyond the reference vocabulary. The effect catalogs, shader presets, and palette libraries in the references are a starting vocabulary. For every project, combine, modify, and invent new patterns. The catalog is a palette of paints — you write the painting.
Be proactively creative. Extend the skill's vocabulary when the project calls for it. If the references don't have what the vision demands, build it. Include at least one visual moment the user didn't ask for but will appreciate — a transition, an effect, a color choice that elevates the whole piece.
Cohesive aesthetic over technical correctness. All scenes in a video must feel connected by a unifying visual language — shared color temperature, related character palettes, consistent motion vocabulary. A technically correct video where every scene uses a random different effect is an aesthetic failure.
What ships with it
9 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 8d ago First seen · 242 lines · 17 tokens per session scan A 1d4f84e0eacc
ascii-video is a skill published in the GitHub repository john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 17 tokens to every session and 3,462 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (runs shell commands). It is 98% identical to ascii-video, differing in 7 lines, and is treated as a copy.
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