Podcast Cover Art Generation

Skill name: podcast-cover-art

Generate episode cover art using AI and apply podcast branding in one command.

Quick Start

cd ~/src/research/podcast/tools
python cover_art.py ../episodes/YYYY-MM-DD-slug/

This:

• Auto-detects title and series from content_plan.md
• Generates AI cover art from report.md using Gemini via OpenRouter
• Applies podcast branding (logo, series/episode text)
• Saves to cover.png in episode directory

Usage

# Full generation + branding (default)
python cover_art.py ../episodes/your-episode/

# With explicit series name
python cover_art.py ../episodes/your-episode/ --series "Series Name"

# Custom episode text for overlay
python cover_art.py ../episodes/your-episode/ --episode-text "Ep 5 - Topic"

# Skip AI generation, only apply branding to existing cover.png
python cover_art.py ../episodes/your-episode/ --skip-generate

# Quiet mode
python cover_art.py ../episodes/your-episode/ --quiet

Requirements

• report.md must exist (used to generate AI image prompt)
• content_plan.md should exist (for auto-detecting title/series)
• OPENROUTERAPIKEY in environment (for Gemini image generation)
• Playfair Display fonts installed

First-Time Setup

# Verify fonts installed
cd ~/src/research/podcast/tools
uv run python add_logo_watermark.py --check-fonts

# If missing, install:
mkdir -p ~/Library/Fonts && cd ~/Library/Fonts
curl -L -o playfair.zip "https://gwfh.mranftl.com/api/fonts/playfair-display?download=zip&subsets=latin&variants=600,italic"
unzip -o playfair.zip

Output

• cover.png - Final branded cover art (1024x1024, ~1MB)
• logs/covergeneration*.txt - Generation log
• logs/covergeneration*.json - Prompt metadata
• logs/brandinglog*.txt - Branding log

Cover Art Specifications

Workflow Integration

Cover art runs during the publishing phase (Phase 12) alongside feed.xml updates:

Phase 12: Publishing
├── Generate cover art (can run in parallel with metadata)
├── Create logs/metadata.md
├── Update feed.xml
└── Validate with podcast-feed-validator

This allows cover art to generate while other publishing tasks proceed.