/image-use

name: "image-use"
version: "0.28.0"
description: >-
  Backend-neutral image generation: create new raster images and looping
  GIF/WebP animations through the local one-file image-use CLI (formerly
  chatgpt-imagegen), using the user's ChatGPT subscription by default, the
  Codex backend as fallback, or an optional Gemini subscription — no API key
  or daemon. Triggers: image generation, generate an image, draw a picture,
  画图, 画一张, 生成图片, 生图, 配图. Use for photos, illustrations, icons, hero banners,
  mockups, sprites, concept art, animation loops, and figures for documents,
  proposals, blog posts, or READMEs; save outputs in the workspace. Auto mode
  prefers the logged-in ChatGPT browser through chrome-use to avoid Codex usage
  and falls back to the Codex backend only when the web path is unavailable.
  Users with a Gemini subscription can name --backend gemini or agy instead.
  Proactively propose useful figures while authoring long-form content. Do not
  use for editing existing images, SVG/vector work, code-native graphics,
  established icon systems, explicit high-quality or transparent API output,
  or end-user image-generation services.

image-use — agent skill

A standalone Python CLI that produces images via the user's existing subscriptions — ChatGPT by default, Codex as fallback, Gemini on request. (Formerly `chatgpt-imagegen`; that command still works as an alias for `image-use`.) No API key, no network service, no extra config. It has **two OpenAI backends** that hit different usage buckets — pick with `--backend` — plus **two opt-in Google/Gemini backends** for users who also have a Gemini subscription.

Backends

| Backend | Surface | Usage bucket | Needs | Speed | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | **`web`** | Drives the user's logged-in ChatGPT browser (via **`chrome-use`**, formerly `agent-browser-stealth`; older installs expose the same binary as `agent-browser`/`abs`) and generates in a regular chat — the same surface as typing in the app. Its real-Chrome connect is what clears Cloudflare + the sentinel proof-of-work a plain/headless client can't. | **ChatGPT conversation** — does **not** consume the metered Codex-usage limit. Works on **any** account, **including free tier** (subject to its daily image cap). | `chrome-use` installed and its extension connected to a Chrome **signed in to chatgpt.com**. | ~30–60 s; each run's chat is filed under a ChatGPT **Project** (default `imagegen`, auto-created) instead of littering the history. | | **`codex`** | Headless POST to `chatgpt.com/backend-api/codex/responses` with the `image_generation` tool, reusing `~/.codex/auth.json`. | **Codex-usage** (metered — this is the bucket the user usually wants to spare). | `codex login` (writes `~/.codex/auth.json`). | Fast; no browser, no history. |

**Default is `auto`** (`--backend auto`, or `IMAGE_USE_BACKEND`): it tries **web first** because that spares the Codex-usage limit, and falls back to **codex only when web is unavailable** — i.e. `chrome-use` isn't installed, the browser isn't reachable, or chatgpt.com isn't logged in. The two not-set-up cases are handled explicitly:

• **Browser not logged in / chrome-use missing** → auto silently falls back to codex (a one-line notice prints to stderr). If codex is *also* not set up, it exits naming both fixes.
• **codex not logged in** (`~/.codex/auth.json` absent) → auto still uses web; codex is only the fallback.

Auto does **not** fall back to codex if web was reachable but the generation itself failed after submitting — that would spend the very bucket auto-mode protects. In that case it errors and tells you to rerun with `--backend codex` if you want the Codex-usage path. Force a single backend with `--backend web` or `--backend codex`.

Gemini backends (opt-in — `auto` never picks them)

For users who also have a **Google/Gemini** subscription. Both drive a Google account, not OpenAI.

| Backend | Surface | Needs | Speed | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | **`gemini`** | Drives a logged-in `gemini.google.com` browser via `chrome-use` — the browser analogue of `web`. | `chrome-use`, plus a Chrome profile signed in to a **subscribed** Google account. | ~11–24 s | | **`agy`** | The **Antigravity CLI** (`agy`) run headless — the analogue of `codex`. | `agy` on PATH. Passes `--dangerously-skip-permissions` by default because headless `agy` cannot prompt for tool permissions; `--no-agy-yolo` opts out if the user maintains their own `permissions.allow` rules. | ~14–25 s |

**Their quotas are separate** — measured, not assumed: `agy` returned *"Image generation model quota (`gemini-3.1-flash-image`) has been exhausted (429)"* while a `--backend gemini` run on the **same Google account** succeeded seconds later. So each is a genuine fallback for the other, and a quota error from one names the other in its message.

**Neither is ever chosen by `auto`.** Deliberate: they hit a different vendor and account, and their output differs in ways a caller would notice. Ask for them by name.

Behaviour worth knowing before recommending one:

• **Visible watermark.** `gemini` **text-to-image** results carry the Gemini "sparkle" glyph, fixed at 65 px in from the bottom-right corner (measured identical across 5 runs at 1024×559). Image-to-image results do not. `agy` results have no visible mark.
• **Both are watermarked invisibly regardless.** `agy` output carries a Google-signed C2PA manifest whose own description reads *"Applied imperceptible SynthID watermark"*. The SynthID signal is in the pixels and survives any re-encode.
• **`gemini` keeps the C2PA manifest on current chrome-use.** Gemini renders results from a `blob:` src, which in-page `fetch()` still cannot read; `chrome-use download-url` now resolves the blob inside the page and writes the original bytes to disk, so the signed manifest survives. Older chrome-use rejected `blob:` outright, leaving only a canvas re-encode — that path is still the fallback and still strips metadata, a