youtube-thumbnail-generate

youtube-thumbnail-generate is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from naveedharri/benai-skills. It costs 169 tokens per session (4,210 once invoked), scanned C, original, MIT.

A one-shot tool for generating branded YouTube video thumbnails from a concept and optional reference images. It produces three variants and a manifest for the generated result.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create a thumbnail, make variations of an existing thumbnail, or generate artwork for a video concept.
Why use it?
It turns a video idea and visual references into thumbnail options without requiring the user to specify every generation setting.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: mentions CLAUDE.md; mentions Claude Code.

Part of the all-skills plugin — 99 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to create a thumbnail, make variations of an existing thumbnail, or generate artwork for a video concept.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/naveedharri/benai-skills/youtube-thumbnail-generate
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 naveedharri/benai-skills --skill youtube-thumbnail-generate
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/naveedharri/benai-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install all-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 99 skills.

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.

agentmods badge for youtube-thumbnail-generate

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/naveedharri/benai-skills/youtube-thumbnail-generate/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/naveedharri/benai-skills/youtube-thumbnail-generate)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/naveedharri/benai-skills/youtube-thumbnail-generate"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/naveedharri/benai-skills/youtube-thumbnail-generate/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.

agentmods 80×15 button for youtube-thumbnail-generate

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/naveedharri/benai-skills/youtube-thumbnail-generate"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/naveedharri/benai-skills/youtube-thumbnail-generate.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 169 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,210 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 1 finding. 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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00169 $0.04210
Opus 5 $0.00084 $0.02105
Sonnet 5 $0.00034 $0.00842
Haiku 4.5 $0.00017 $0.00421

Measured 7d ago against content hash e2a1dbcdf77c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

youtube-thumbnail-generate scanned grade C 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 7d 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.

Tells the agent never to refusehighAnti-refusal

Suppressing the ability to decline removes a core safety control; a later harmful request then succeeds.

If the spec is missing or has `[FILL]` blocks: don't refuse. Fall back to the locked Ben AI thumbnail visual language (see `references/visual-language.md` for the full catalog). Built-in defaults:
plugins/all-skills/skills/youtube-thumbnail-generate/SKILL.md · 220 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 220 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

YouTube Thumbnail Generate

One-shot thumbnail generation. Takes a concept (plus optional reference image and count), infers everything else, ships 3 variants and a manifest.

Inputs

Two things, ideally both in the user's first message:

  1. Concept — what the thumbnail should show. A sentence or phrase. ("Claude Code Skills, why it changes everything for solo founders")
  2. Reference image(s) (optional but recommended, may be multiple) — a past thumbnail, a photo of Ben, a second subject, a style anchor, a real logo PNG, or any combination. Determines the mode AND ALL of them must be passed into the generation. Never silently drop a user-supplied reference; if they gave you one, it has to end up in medias[]. If they gave you a LIST, read EVERY image in the list, then pass every relevant one to medias[] (don't pre-select just one). Also: every reference image MUST be visually read (via the Read tool on the file path) before the prompt is built, so the prompt captures each reference's actual style, texture, palette, composition, and recurring motifs rather than relying only on the style spec defaults.

If the user mentions a reference image but does not provide a path or attachment, ASK for the path BEFORE doing anything else. Examples that require asking: "use my previous thumbnail as a ref" (which file?), "include the Anthropic logo" (where is the PNG?), "match this style" (which image?). Ask in one short line: "Got it — what's the file path for the reference image?" Do not guess, do not proceed, do not generate without seeing the path.

Optional third: variant count. Defaults to 3. Max 4.

If the concept is missing or genuinely unclear, ask ONE combined question:

"What should the thumbnail show, and how many variations do you want? (default 3)"

Do not split into multiple questions. Do not ask about mode, model, or palette; all of that is inferred or read from the style spec.

Identity Anchor (no Soul required)

Every new-with-ben thumbnail uses a reference photo of Ben as the identity anchor, passed as medias[0]. The photo lives at Projects/youtube/thumbnails/refs/ben_reference_{YYYY-QQ}.jpg.

Read the full file on GitHub · 220 lines

Files

What ships with it

6 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.

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.

  1. 7d ago First seen · 220 lines · 169 tokens per session scan C e2a1dbcdf77c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

youtube-thumbnail-generate is a skill published in the GitHub repository naveedharri/benai-skills (61 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 169 tokens to every session and 4,210 once invoked, about $0.0008 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 1 finding (tells the agent never to refuse). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-05.