visual-explainer

<p> <img src="banner.png" alt="visual-explainer" width="1100"> </p>

visual-explainer

An agent skill that turns complex terminal output into styled HTML pages you actually want to read.

Ask your agent to explain a system architecture, review a diff, or compare requirements against a plan. Instead of ASCII art and box-drawing tables, it generates a self-contained HTML page and opens it in your browser.

> draw a diagram of our authentication flow
> /diff-review
> /plan-review ~/docs/refactor-plan.md

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/55ebc81b-8732-40f6-a4b1-7c3781aa96ec

Why

Every coding agent defaults to ASCII art when you ask for a diagram. Box-drawing characters, monospace alignment hacks, text arrows. It works for trivial cases, but anything beyond a 3-box flowchart turns into an unreadable mess.

Tables are worse. Ask the agent to compare 15 requirements against a plan and you get a wall of pipes and dashes that wraps and breaks in the terminal. The data is there but it's painful to read.

This skill fixes that. Real typography, dark/light themes, interactive Mermaid diagrams with zoom and pan. No build step, no dependencies beyond a browser.

Install

Pi:

pi install https://github.com/nicobailon/visual-explainer

Claude Code:

git clone https://github.com/nicobailon/visual-explainer.git ~/.claude/skills/visual-explainer
mkdir -p ~/.claude/commands
cp ~/.claude/skills/visual-explainer/prompts/*.md ~/.claude/commands/

Commands

| Command | What it does | |---------|-------------| | /generate-web-diagram | Generate an HTML diagram for any topic | | /generate-visual-plan | Generate a visual implementation plan for a feature or extension | | /generate-slides | Generate a magazine-quality slide deck | | /diff-review | Visual diff review with architecture comparison and code review | | /plan-review | Compare a plan against the codebase with risk assessment | | /project-recap | Mental model snapshot for context-switching back to a project | | /fact-check | Verify accuracy of a document against actual code |

The agent also kicks in automatically when it's about to dump a complex table in the terminal (4+ rows or 3+ columns) — it renders HTML instead.

Slide Deck Mode

Any command that produces a scrollable page supports --slides to generate a slide deck instead:

/diff-review --slides
/project-recap --slides 2w

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/342d3558-5fcf-4fb2-bc03-f0dd5b9e35dc

How It Works

SKILL.md (workflow + design principles)
    ↓
references/           ← agent reads before generating
├── css-patterns.md   (layouts, animations, theming)
├── libraries.md      (Mermaid, Chart.js, fonts)
├── responsive-nav.md (sticky TOC for multi-section pages)
└── slide-patterns.md (slide engine, transitions, presets)
    ↓
templates/            ← reference templates with different palettes
├── architecture.html
├── mermaid-flowchart.html
├── data-table.html
└── slide-deck.html
    ↓
~/.agent/diagrams/filename.html → opens in browser

The skill routes to the right approach automatically: Mermaid for flowcharts and diagrams, CSS Grid for architecture overviews, HTML tables for data, Chart.js for dashboards.

Limitations

• Requires a browser to view
• Switching OS theme requires a page refresh for Mermaid SVGs
• Results vary by model capability

Credits

Borrows ideas from Anthropic's frontend-design skill and interface-design.

License

MIT