Canvas Design

Reviewed 2026-10-14mediaPrompt / Rule# design # poster # art # png # pdf

Anthropic's official canvas-design skill: turns a poster or art request into a written design philosophy, then a one-page PNG or PDF, with 29 bundled font families.

Security Reviewed

Instruction-only Anthropic skill with bundled fonts: no scripts, no network calls written into it (apart from a generic note to download fonts if needed) and no credentials.

Install Canvas Design in Google Antigravity

Antigravity loads skills from .agents/skills/ in your project or ~/.gemini/config/skills/ for all projects (official docs). Full guide

EasiestOption 1: paste this to your Antigravity agent

Install the "Canvas Design" skill for Google Antigravity.
Follow the steps at https://www.antigravityskills.org/install/canvas-design.md (source: https://github.com/anthropics/skills/tree/main/skills/canvas-design).
Before running anything, show me what you will download and whether it includes scripts, and wait for my OK.
Install it into this project (.agents/skills/) unless I say global. When done, check that Antigravity lists it as an installed skill.

The agent reads the install file, shows you what it will download and waits for your OK.

Option 2: install it yourself

1. Download the repository
```
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/anthropics/skills /tmp/anthropic-skills && git -C /tmp/anthropic-skills log -1 --format=%h -- skills/canvas-design
```
The last change to the skill folder at our review was b9e19e6 (2026-04-20); a different hash means the skill changed after our review.
2. Copy the skill into this project (workspace skill)
```
mkdir -p .agents/skills && cp -r /tmp/anthropic-skills/skills/canvas-design .agents/skills/
```
Run from your project root. Antigravity then reads .agents/skills/canvas-design/SKILL.md; the canvas-fonts folder (5.5 MB) comes along.
3. Or install it for all projects (global skill)
```
mkdir -p ~/.gemini/config/skills && cp -r /tmp/anthropic-skills/skills/canvas-design ~/.gemini/config/skills/
```
Use this instead of the previous step. For the Antigravity CLI the global folder is ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/skills/.
4. Check that Antigravity sees it
Antigravity 2.0 app: start a new conversation and ask "What skills do you have?" (the app has no /skills command). Antigravity CLI: run /skills; in a session that was already open, run /skills reload first. The skill is listed as canvas-design.

Anthropic documents only Claude Code, Claude.ai and the API; Antigravity is not mentioned. No API keys, binaries or scripts are needed: the folder holds SKILL.md, LICENSE.txt and canvas-fonts/. Your agent still needs a way to render PNG or PDF files.

Using Claude Code, Cursor or Codex? See other assistants below.

What is Canvas Design?

For anyone who wants an agent to make a poster, cover or other static visual piece that looks designed rather than templated. canvas-design is Anthropic's official skill: instructions that make the agent first write a short "design philosophy" (a named aesthetic movement) as a Markdown file, then express it as one page of art in a PNG or PDF, with minimal text. What we counted at commit dbd4588 (2026-10-09; the folder was last touched in b9e19e6 on 2026-04-20, a LICENSE.txt update, and SKILL.md itself was last changed in ef74077 on 2025-12-01): 83 files and 5,554,003 bytes. SKILL.md is 129 lines / 1,749 words / 11,939 bytes, there is an Apache 2.0 LICENSE.txt, and canvas-fonts/ holds 54 TTF files from 29 font families with 27 OFL license texts, 5,530,719 bytes or 99.6% of the folder. There is no script and no code: the agent chooses its own tools to draw the page.

How to use Canvas Design?

Copy the folder into Antigravity's skills folder, then ask for a poster, piece of art or other static design in normal words. Per SKILL.md the agent writes a 4-6 paragraph philosophy (a 1-2 word movement name), works out a subtle subject reference from your request, then builds a single-page PDF or PNG, picking fonts from the bundled canvas-fonts folder, and refines it in a second pass. You get the .md philosophy and one .pdf or .png file; more pages only if you ask for them.

Key features of Canvas Design

✓Two-step method: a design philosophy written to a .md file, then a one-page .png or .pdf that expresses it
✓Five example movements in SKILL.md (Concrete Poetry, Chromatic Language, Analog Meditation, Organic Systems, Geometric Silence) to steer tone
✓Visual-first rule: the finished piece is meant to be about 90% design and 10% essential text, with nothing overlapping or leaving the canvas
✓29 bundled font families (54 TTF files) that the agent is told to search before choosing type
✓Final-pass rule: refine what exists instead of adding more graphics
✓Optional multi-page mode that bundles extra pages in one PDF or several PNGs when you ask

When to use Canvas Design

1A poster or event flyer with a strong visual identity
2A cover or print-style art piece for a project
3A one-page visual to accompany a landing page concept
4A multi-page art-book style series from one philosophy

Installation & Setup Guide

Agent Rules / Prompt Setup

Follow these steps (taken from the project's own docs) to configure Canvas Design in your development environment.

Step 1: Claude Code: anthropics/skills marketplaceclaude

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
/plugin install example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills

Documented in the anthropics/skills README. canvas-design is one of the 12 skills in the example-skills plugin (.claude-plugin/marketplace.json), so this installs it with the others.

Step 2: Claude.aiclaude

The anthropics/skills README says its example skills are already available to paid Claude.ai plans.

Step 3: Cursorcursor

Not documented by the project.

Usage Example & Verification

Prompt / Request Example

1) Our example (SKILL.md and the repository README give no sample prompt): "Create a poster for a ceramics studio's open day. Use the canvas-design skill."
-> What should happen: the agent writes a design philosophy .md first, then produces one .pdf or .png with very little text, using a font from canvas-fonts.

2) Our example: "Make a minimalist poster about low tide, as a PNG. Show me the philosophy before you draw."
-> What should happen: you see the named movement and its 4-6 paragraphs first; the piece follows the philosophy instead of a layout template.

3) Our example: "Now make it a 3-page PDF in the same style."
-> What should happen: per the multi-page section, pages 2 and 3 are "distinctly different" twists on page 1 that tell a story, bundled in the same PDF.

Security Review

Static review

Reviewed Date

2026-10-14

Audited Ref / Commit

dbd4588f9e1033efb41dad4bef2f7947c8993d44

Reviewer

antigravityskills.org (static code review)

Instruction-only Anthropic skill with bundled fonts: no scripts, no network calls written into it (apart from a generic note to download fonts if needed) and no credentials.

Full review: scope, findings, risks

Audit Scope:anthropics/skills at HEAD dbd4588 (2026-10-09): skills/canvas-design/SKILL.md in full, LICENSE.txt header, the canvas-fonts file list, sizes and license files (the 54 TTF binaries were counted, not analyzed), README.md and .claude-plugin/marketplace.json (plugin membership), and a diff against the sickn33/antigravity-awesome-skills copy at bdacd76.

Key Findings:Instruction-only skill plus font files. SKILL.md has no shell commands, no URLs, no code blocks to run, no allowed-tools field and no environment variables; it tells the agent to write a philosophy .md file and a .png or .pdf, to search ./canvas-fonts, and to download any further fonts it needs. Nothing in the folder is executable.

Identified Operational Risks & Permissions:Low. The agent writes .md and .png/.pdf files in your working folder and may download fonts if it decides to. Output quality depends on the rendering tools your agent has. The TTF binaries were not analyzed.

Static review at commit dbd4588 of anthropics/skills (nothing was executed). skills/canvas-design has 83 files: SKILL.md (129 lines), LICENSE.txt (Apache License 2.0) and canvas-fonts/ with 54 TTF files and 27 OFL license texts. The SKILL.md frontmatter has name, description and license only. The body is Markdown guidance in two steps (design philosophy as .md, then a canvas expressed as a single-page .pdf or .png), with a subject-deduction step, a final refinement pass and an optional multi-page mode. It contains no shell commands, no URLs and no code. It does tell the agent to search ./canvas-fonts and to "download and use whatever fonts are needed", which is an open-ended instruction that can lead to network access if the agent chooses to follow it. The font binaries were counted and sized but not analyzed beyond their names and license files. License: Apache-2.0 for the skill; fonts under SIL OFL (27 texts).

Operational Notes & Known Limitations

Known Limitations

•Instruction-only: SKILL.md names no drawing library, so the agent must be able to write and run code (for example a PNG or PDF renderer) in your environment; the page's quality depends on that tooling, which we did not test
•Output is a static image or PDF, not HTML or CSS. For UI code use frontend-design, Impeccable or UI/UX Pro Max instead
•99.6% of the 5.5 MB folder is font files; copy it globally if you do not want 5.5 MB in every project
•SKILL.md also says to "download and use whatever fonts are needed", so the agent may fetch fonts from the internet beyond the bundled 29 families
•The fonts carry their own SIL OFL texts (27 files; IBMPlexSerif and InstrumentSerif have none in the folder, we counted); the skill itself is Apache 2.0
•anthropics/skills' README says its skills are for demonstration and educational purposes and may differ from built-in Claude behavior
•Neither the README nor SKILL.md mentions Antigravity (we searched). The wording "the next Claude" shows it was written for Claude; we did not test it in other agents
•A modified community copy exists in sickn33/antigravity-awesome-skills (12,256-byte SKILL.md: shortened description, a risk: critical label and added generic When to Use / Limitations sections); this page covers the Anthropic original

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the canvas-design skill?

Anthropic's official skill for static visual art: the agent writes a design philosophy as a .md file, then expresses it as a one-page PNG or PDF with minimal text. The folder bundles 29 font families.

How do I install canvas-design in Antigravity?

Clone github.com/anthropics/skills and copy skills/canvas-design into .agents/skills/ in your project, or into ~/.gemini/config/skills/ for all projects. Then ask "What skills do you have?" (CLI: /skills).

Is the canvas-design skill safe?

In our static review of commit dbd4588 it is instructions plus fonts: no scripts, no commands, no URLs and no API keys. The one network hint is a sentence telling the agent it may download extra fonts.

Does it make web pages?

No. It produces a PNG or PDF. For HTML and CSS use frontend-design, Impeccable or UI/UX Pro Max.

Is this the same as the sickn33 version?

No. The community copy changes the description and adds generic sections; this page covers Anthropic's original in anthropics/skills.

Supported Platforms

antigravityclaude

View Source on GitHub

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