Make pixel art videos with Claude Code.

What you need

• Claude Code on a paid Claude plan.
• A Mac, Windows, or Linux computer.
• Python 3.9 or newer. The install prompt checks for it and tells you how to get it if it's missing.

Download the kit

Download pixel-kit.zip and unzip it. Leave the pixel-kit folder in your Downloads or on your Desktop.

Or get it on GitHub: github.com/StilesAI/pixel

Install it

Open Claude Code and paste this. It sets everything up in its own folder, installs the skill, and renders the booster catch so you know it works. It asks before installing anything outside the kit.

Set up Pixel Kit on this computer. I downloaded and unzipped it; find the folder named pixel-kit (check Downloads and Desktop first) that contains a pixelkit folder and requirements.txt.

Do these steps in order, and ask me before installing anything outside that folder:
1. Check that Python 3.9 or newer is installed (python3 --version, or py --version on Windows). If it is missing, tell me how to install it and stop.
2. Copy the kit to ~/pixel-kit (on Windows %USERPROFILE%\pixel-kit). If ~/pixel-kit already exists, ask me before replacing anything, and never overwrite its scenes or out folders.
3. Create a virtual environment at ~/pixel-kit/.venv and install requirements.txt into it.
4. Install the skill by copying ~/pixel-kit/skill/pixel-kit to ~/.claude/skills/pixel-kit.
5. Run the install check from ~/pixel-kit: .venv/bin/python -m pixelkit doctor (Windows: .venv\Scripts\python -m pixelkit doctor).
6. Render the example as a test: .venv/bin/python -m pixelkit render examples/booster_catch.py, then open out/booster_catch.mp4 for me.
7. Tell me in a short list what you installed and where.

Make your first one

Swap in what you want to see where the blue brackets are. Claude plans the timing, draws the scene, checks a sheet of frames, and then renders the video.

Use the pixel-kit skill to make a pixel animation of [what happens, e.g. a hot air balloon rising out of a valley at sunrise while an altitude readout counts up].
Format 4:5, about 8 seconds. Show me the contact sheet before you render the video.

A few ideas that work well:

• A lighthouse that builds itself from the ground up while a height readout counts to 48 m
• A robot at a desk at night, rain on the window, the laptop lighting its face
• A bar chart of your screen time this week, with the biggest day called out
• One domino tipping a row of twelve while a counter tracks how many have fallen

Change the colors

Every scene renders in any of these without changing the scene:

• Five palettes: night, dusk, ember, harbor, and paper
• One hue, built from any color you give it
• Black and white
• Your own colors, a few as anchors or a full 10+ color palette

Render scenes/[name].py in the dusk palette, one hue of #1f3dff, and black and white, and put them side by side so I can pick one.

What's inside

• A render engine with shading, lighting, particles, smoke, pixel fonts, and readouts, exported to MP4, GIF, or stills
• A Claude skill with the workflow, the art rules, and a review checklist
• Six templates: measure, chart, dominoes, desk, forest, and blank
• The booster catch example
• Sprites (robot, cat, person with a walk cycle, bird, coin, heart) and about 20 drawn props like trees, mountains, skylines, lamps, and water
• START HERE.html with every prompt, and PROMPTS.md