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gifgrep skill

/skills/steipete/gifgrep

This skill searches GIF providers via CLI, previews and downloads results, and extracts stills or sheets for fast review.

npx playbooks add skill openclaw/skills --skill gifgrep

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SKILL.md
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---
name: gifgrep
description: Search GIF providers with CLI/TUI, download results, and extract stills/sheets.
homepage: https://gifgrep.com
metadata: {"clawdbot":{"emoji":"🧲","requires":{"bins":["gifgrep"]},"install":[{"id":"brew","kind":"brew","formula":"steipete/tap/gifgrep","bins":["gifgrep"],"label":"Install gifgrep (brew)"},{"id":"go","kind":"go","module":"github.com/steipete/gifgrep/cmd/gifgrep@latest","bins":["gifgrep"],"label":"Install gifgrep (go)"}]}}
---

# gifgrep

Use `gifgrep` to search GIF providers (Tenor/Giphy), browse in a TUI, download results, and extract stills or sheets.

GIF-Grab (gifgrep workflow)
- Search → preview → download → extract (still/sheet) for fast review and sharing.

Quick start
- `gifgrep cats --max 5`
- `gifgrep cats --format url | head -n 5`
- `gifgrep search --json cats | jq '.[0].url'`
- `gifgrep tui "office handshake"`
- `gifgrep cats --download --max 1 --format url`

TUI + previews
- TUI: `gifgrep tui "query"`
- CLI still previews: `--thumbs` (Kitty/Ghostty only; still frame)

Download + reveal
- `--download` saves to `~/Downloads`
- `--reveal` shows the last download in Finder

Stills + sheets
- `gifgrep still ./clip.gif --at 1.5s -o still.png`
- `gifgrep sheet ./clip.gif --frames 9 --cols 3 -o sheet.png`
- Sheets = single PNG grid of sampled frames (great for quick review, docs, PRs, chat).
- Tune: `--frames` (count), `--cols` (grid width), `--padding` (spacing).

Providers
- `--source auto|tenor|giphy`
- `GIPHY_API_KEY` required for `--source giphy`
- `TENOR_API_KEY` optional (Tenor demo key used if unset)

Output
- `--json` prints an array of results (`id`, `title`, `url`, `preview_url`, `tags`, `width`, `height`)
- `--format` for pipe-friendly fields (e.g., `url`)

Environment tweaks
- `GIFGREP_SOFTWARE_ANIM=1` to force software animation
- `GIFGREP_CELL_ASPECT=0.5` to tweak preview geometry

Overview

This skill provides a compact CLI/TUI tool to search GIF providers (Tenor and Giphy), preview results, download files, and extract stills or sheets. It streamlines finding and packaging GIF content for quick review, documentation, or sharing.

How this skill works

gifgrep queries configured providers and returns structured results including id, title, url, preview_url, tags, width, and height. It offers a text-based TUI with thumbnails, a headless CLI mode for piping URLs or JSON, download and reveal options, and image extraction commands to produce single-frame stills or multi-frame sheets.

When to use it

  • Rapidly find and preview GIFs from Tenor or Giphy in terminal workflows.
  • Batch download GIFs for archival or content libraries.
  • Generate still frames for documentation, PRs, or chat previews.
  • Create contact-sheet style PNGs for quick visual review of clips.
  • Integrate GIF search into shell scripts or CI using JSON output.

Best practices

  • Set GIPHY_API_KEY when using Giphy; Tenor works with an optional demo key.
  • Use --format url or --json when piping results into jq or other tools.
  • Limit --max for faster searches and smaller downloads during testing.
  • Use --thumbs with compatible terminals (Kitty/Ghostty) for inline previews.
  • Tune sheet generation with --frames, --cols, and --padding for readable layouts.

Example use cases

  • `gifgrep cats --max 5` to quickly list top GIFs for a topic.
  • `gifgrep tui "office handshake"` to interactively browse and pick a clip.
  • `gifgrep cats --download --max 1 --format url` to fetch a file into Downloads.
  • `gifgrep still ./clip.gif --at 1.5s -o still.png` to extract a representative frame.
  • `gifgrep sheet ./clip.gif --frames 9 --cols 3 -o sheet.png` to produce a 3x3 contact sheet.

FAQ

Do I need an API key?

Giphy requires GIPHY_API_KEY. Tenor works with an optional TENOR_API_KEY (a demo key is used if unset).

Where are downloads saved?

By default downloads save to ~/Downloads and --reveal opens the last downloaded file in Finder (on macOS).