Design a high-CTR YouTube thumbnail

Muapi youtube thumbnail

by SamurAIGPT · MIT license · ★ 4,317 on GitHub · v1.0.0 · updated Sep 8

Design a high-CTR YouTube thumbnail — striking imagery, bold text placement, and emotional face/subject if needed.

---
slug: muapi-youtube-thumbnail
name: muapi-youtube-thumbnail
version: "1.0.0"
description: Design a high-CTR YouTube thumbnail — striking imagery, bold text placement, and emotional face/subject if needed.
acceptLicenseTerms: true
---


# YouTube Thumbnail

**Design a high-CTR YouTube thumbnail — striking imagery, bold text placement, and emotional face/subject if needed.**

## Inputs

| Name | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|:---|:---|:---|:---|:---|
| `title` | text | yes | — | The video title or topic (e.g. "I tried 7 AI tools in 24 hours — here's what happened"). |

Overview

Design a high-CTR YouTube thumbnail — striking imagery, bold text placement, and emotional face/subject if needed.

The SKILL.md below is the copy AgentAlley read and checked. The repo has changed it since; the other files are from commit 5519622.

Manual install (npx, ZIP)

Claude Codenpx skills add SamurAIGPT/Generative-Media-Skills --skill muapi-youtube-thumbnail -g -a claude-code

Claude Code (manual)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && curl -sL https://codeload.github.com/SamurAIGPT/Generative-Media-Skills/tar.gz/5519622e885a \
  | tar -xz -C ~/.claude/skills --strip-components=3 Generative-Media-Skills-5519622e885a/.opencode/skills/muapi-youtube-thumbnail

Windows (PowerShell)

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force "$HOME\.claude\skills" | Out-Null; Invoke-WebRequest "https://m.agentalley.io/zip/5167f8ea744020b464d4/muapi-youtube-thumbnail.zip" -OutFile "$env:TEMP\muapi-youtube-thumbnail.zip"; Expand-Archive "$env:TEMP\muapi-youtube-thumbnail.zip" -DestinationPath "$HOME\.claude\skills" -Force

Claude.ai / desktopDownload the ZIP and upload it under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

Codex, Cursor, other agentsPoint them at SKILL.md. The other files are plain text.

Connects with Agent Alley MCP · agentalley.io/mcp

Files included

SKILL.md3.2 KB

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SamurAIGPT/55196221 file

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PreviewCode

Outline

RawView on GitHub

YouTube Thumbnail

Design a high-CTR YouTube thumbnail — striking imagery, bold text placement, and emotional face/subject if needed.

Inputs

Name	Type	Required	Default	Description
`title`	text	yes	—	The video title or topic (e.g. "I tried 7 AI tools in 24 hours — here's what happened").
`channel_style`	text	no	bold, high contrast, bright colors, clean design, YouTube tech aesthetic	Channel brand style (e.g. "dark moody gaming", "bright educational", "minimal corporate").
`subject_description`	text	no	—	Optional description of the person or subject to feature (e.g. "a surprised young man in a hoodie").

Steps

Thumbnails are the #1 factor in YouTube CTR. Generate a single, maximum-impact 16:9 image.

Phase A — Plan the composition

Before generating, briefly reason about the best thumbnail formula for this topic:

Emotion-first: shocked/curious face if relevant + bold text = high CTR
Text overlay: 3–5 words max, high-contrast (white/yellow on dark, or vice-versa)
Contrast & saturation: thumbnails compete in a grid — they must pop

Phase B — Generate the thumbnail

Build the image generation prompt:
- Subject: {{subject_description}} if provided, otherwise design an object/scene that dramatizes the topic.
- Mood: derives from {{channel_style}}.
- Composition: rule-of-thirds, subject on left or right with empty space for text.
- Style tags: {{channel_style}}, youtube thumbnail composition, ultra detailed, vibrant, high contrast, 16:9.
Call muapi image generate (model=gpt-image-2-text-to-image, aspect_ratio=16:9).

Phase C — Text overlay guidance

After generation, return:

Suggested overlay text: 3–5 bold words that complement the title {{title}}.
Text placement: where on the canvas to position text (e.g. "bold yellow text, top-right third").
Font recommendation: style suggestion (e.g. "Impact-style all-caps with black outline").

Notes

Never put too much text in the prompt — text rendering in image models is unreliable. Guide the user on adding text in post-production (Canva, Photoshop).
If the user already has a channel image or face photo in the session, use muapi image edit to incorporate it.
Suggest A/B variants only if the user asks.

Trigger Keywords

youtube thumbnail, yt thumbnail, thumbnail, video thumbnail, youtube cover

Notes for the Executing Agent

This recipe is LLM-orchestrated: read each phase, gather any missing inputs from the user, then call muapi CLI commands. Use muapi auth configure first if MUAPI_API_KEY is unset.
For model IDs without a CLI alias yet, fall back to the raw endpoint via curl -X POST https://api.muapi.ai/api/v1/<endpoint> -H "x-api-key: $MUAPI_API_KEY" -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{...}' and poll with muapi predict wait <request_id>.
Substitute {{input_name}} placeholders with the user's actual inputs before issuing each call.

1	---
2	slug: muapi-youtube-thumbnail
3	name: muapi-youtube-thumbnail
4	version: "1.0.0"
5	description: Design a high-CTR YouTube thumbnail — striking imagery, bold text placement, and emotional face/subject if needed.
6	acceptLicenseTerms: true
7	---
8
9
10	# YouTube Thumbnail
11
12	Design a high-CTR YouTube thumbnail — striking imagery, bold text placement, and emotional face/subject if needed.
13
14	## Inputs
15
16	\| Name \| Type \| Required \| Default \| Description \|
17	\|:---\|:---\|:---\|:---\|:---\|
18	\| `title` \| text \| yes \| — \| The video title or topic (e.g. "I tried 7 AI tools in 24 hours — here's what happened"). \|
19	\| `channel_style` \| text \| no \| bold, high contrast, bright colors, clean design, YouTube tech aesthetic \| Channel brand style (e.g. "dark moody gaming", "bright educational", "minimal corporate"). \|
20	\| `subject_description` \| text \| no \| — \| Optional description of the person or subject to feature (e.g. "a surprised young man in a hoodie"). \|
21
22
23	## Steps
24
25	Thumbnails are the #1 factor in YouTube CTR. Generate a single, maximum-impact 16:9 image.
26
27	### Phase A — Plan the composition
28
29	Before generating, briefly reason about the best thumbnail formula for this topic:
30	- Emotion-first: shocked/curious face if relevant + bold text = high CTR
31	- Text overlay: 3–5 words max, high-contrast (white/yellow on dark, or vice-versa)
32	- Contrast & saturation: thumbnails compete in a grid — they must pop
33
34	### Phase B — Generate the thumbnail
35
36	1. Build the image generation prompt:
37	- Subject: `{{subject_description}}` if provided, otherwise design an object/scene that dramatizes the topic.
38	- Mood: derives from `{{channel_style}}`.
39	- Composition: rule-of-thirds, subject on left or right with empty space for text.
40	- Style tags: `{{channel_style}}, youtube thumbnail composition, ultra detailed, vibrant, high contrast, 16:9`.
41	2. Call `muapi image generate` (model=gpt-image-2-text-to-image, aspect_ratio=16:9).
42
43	### Phase C — Text overlay guidance
44
45	After generation, return:
46	- Suggested overlay text: 3–5 bold words that complement the title `{{title}}`.
47	- Text placement: where on the canvas to position text (e.g. "bold yellow text, top-right third").
48	- Font recommendation: style suggestion (e.g. "Impact-style all-caps with black outline").
49
50	## Notes
51	- Never put too much text in the prompt — text rendering in image models is unreliable. Guide the user on adding text in post-production (Canva, Photoshop).
52	- If the user already has a channel image or face photo in the session, use `muapi image edit` to incorporate it.
53	- Suggest A/B variants only if the user asks.
54
55	## Trigger Keywords
56
57	`youtube thumbnail`, `yt thumbnail`, `thumbnail`, `video thumbnail`, `youtube cover`
58
59
60	---
61
62	## Notes for the Executing Agent
63
64	- This recipe is LLM-orchestrated: read each phase, gather any missing inputs from the user, then call `muapi` CLI commands. Use `muapi auth configure` first if `MUAPI_API_KEY` is unset.
65	- For model IDs without a CLI alias yet, fall back to the raw endpoint via `curl -X POST https://api.muapi.ai/api/v1/<endpoint> -H "x-api-key: $MUAPI_API_KEY" -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{...}'` and poll with `muapi predict wait <request_id>`.
66	- Substitute `{{input_name}}` placeholders with the user's actual inputs before issuing each call.