What is generate-chat-background?

A workflow for generating and applying an image as the chat background in the Agents window. It can make a wallpaper, pattern, or illustration based on the requested subject and style.

Use it to generate and set chat wallpapers, decorative patterns, or illustrations, or to explain when the required image or background tools are unavailable.

It avoids manually preparing and applying a suitable background when the user wants a generated image.

generate-chat-background — Skill by microsoft/vscode

About the project

Visual Studio Code is a code editor that supports editing, navigating, understanding, debugging, and extending software projects. Developers use it for the edit-build-debug cycle, and the catalogue add-ons provide skills, instructions, and agents for working within the editor.

microsoft/vscode · 195,180 stars · on GitHub · code.visualstudio.com

Install

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.

Any agent

npx skills add microsoft/vscode --skill generate-chat-background

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote 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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/microsoft/vscode/generate-chat-background/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/microsoft/vscode/generate-chat-background)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/microsoft/vscode/generate-chat-background"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/microsoft/vscode/generate-chat-background/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/microsoft/vscode/generate-chat-background"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/microsoft/vscode/generate-chat-background.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 40 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 526 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

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	$0.00040	$0.00526
Opus 5.5	$0.00016	$0.00210
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00008	$0.00105
Haiku 4.5	$0.00004	$0.00053

Measured 12d ago against content hash 70487dc4baff, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

generate-chat-background scanned grade A with 0 findings 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 12d 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.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

src/vs/sessions/skills/generate-chat-background/SKILL.md · 35 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 35 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Generate Chat Background

Generate an image and apply it as the chat background with setChatBackground. The user's requested subject, style, and colors take priority over the guidance below.

If the user only wants to apply an existing image, change the layout, use Codicons, or remove the background, call setChatBackground directly. Do not generate an image unless asked.

Generate and apply

If setChatBackground or an image-generation tool is unavailable, explain that rather than generating an image you cannot apply.
Call getThemeColors and use the palette as context for the image, not as a limit on the user's colors.
Design for the chat: messages and the input cover the center, so keep interesting detail toward the edges and keep contrast low enough for text to stay readable. For a pattern, generate a seamless tile with small, spaced motifs.
Save the image to a file in your working or scratch directory and pass its path to setChatBackground. If it fails, report the error and fix the input.

Choose the layout:

repeat tiles the image at its original size. Resize the tile first if its motifs are too large or too small.
stretch fills the chat but can distort the image.
center and the edge or corner layouts show the image once at its original size. An opaque image can show its own ground as a visible rectangle.

Check the result

After setChatBackground succeeds, call screenshotWindow and check that the subject is visible around the chat, the image blends in without seams or patches, motifs have a good size, and the conversation stays readable. Fix specific problems by adjusting the layout or tile size or by regenerating, for at most a couple of rounds.

The screenshot shows only the current view. Do not navigate the interface to capture other states, and do not comment on unrelated content in the screenshot.

Read the full file on GitHub · 35 lines

Changes

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.

12d ago Changed · -31 lines 70487dc4baff
13d ago First seen · 66 lines · 40 tokens per session scan A ab00951de469

Subscribe to this mod's changes

generate-chat-background is a skill published in the GitHub repository microsoft/vscode (195,180 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 40 tokens to every session and 526 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-10-26.

Creative and media TypeScript editor electron microsoft visual-studio-code

generate-chat-background next to 6 skills from other repositories
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generate-chat-backgroundmicrosoft/vscode	Skill	195k	today	MIT	A	40	Claude Code, Codex
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