VisActor Skills

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Agent skills for the VisActor visualization ecosystem. Create data stories, editorial image series and biography posters with independently installable Skills. VChart and VTable Skills are maintained in their respective library repositories.

Skills

Maintained in this repository

Skill	Tasks
chart-storytelling	Analysis reports, business briefings and data features, with chart scrollytelling and annotations, delivered as HTML stories or Web-PPT
editorial-magazine	Editorial HTML / PNG series for news, biographies, outfits, travel, chronological stories and explainers
life-chronicle	Biography posters with photo walls, center grids, photo rings and editable timelines
person-poster	Person-led data posters with native VChart, editable HTML and high-resolution PNG
visactor-light-dashboard	Compact business dashboards with metrics, filters and further analysis
visactor-map2d-dashboard	Interactive 2D map dashboards linking regions, metrics and records
visactor-chart-editor	Self-service chart editing with field drag-and-drop and live data exploration
visactor-map3d-dashboard	3D globe dashboards for regional analysis and linked evidence

Chart and table Skills are maintained in their library repositories. Install them directly from the source:

Skill	Tasks	Repository
VChart Skill	Chart generation, diagnosis, image replication and React integration	VisActor/VChart
VTable Skill	List tables, pivot tables/charts, interactions and diagnosis	VisActor/VTable

Each skill includes its instructions, local references, templates and scripts. No separate VisActor CLI, MCP server, model key or hosted VisActor API is required. The host agent supplies the model.

Recommended: use the Skills directly in Codex or Claude Code. Your agent provides model access and tool execution. Other compatible agents may also use these Skills, but do not have dedicated setup instructions here.

Install

Run these commands in the project where you want to use the Skills:

npx skills add VisActor/skills --skill chart-storytelling
npx skills add VisActor/skills --skill editorial-magazine
npx skills add VisActor/skills --skill life-chronicle
npx skills add ./skills/visactor-light-dashboard
npx skills add ./skills/visactor-map2d-dashboard
npx skills add ./skills/visactor-chart-editor
npx skills add ./skills/visactor-map3d-dashboard

person-poster is available from a checkout containing this Skill: npx skills add ./skills/person-poster. The default-branch command npx skills add VisActor/skills --skill person-poster becomes available after promotion to main; a release tag is not required for default-branch installation.

For chart and table tasks, install the related Skills from their owning repositories:

npx skills add VisActor/VChart --skill vchart-development-assistant
npx skills add VisActor/VTable --skill vtable-development-assistant

If you previously installed data-storytelling, remove that installed copy and install chart-storytelling to use the renamed Skill.

Follow the installer’s prompts to select Codex or Claude Code. You can install each Skill independently. More installation options are documented in the Skills CLI reference.

Requirements:

Node.js and npm for installation; a host agent with filesystem/shell tools and its own model access.
A browser and network access to preview generated HTML and load external assets.

Skill	Runtime requirements
chart-storytelling	Python 3.10+ (standard library) and Node.js for JavaScript checks; pinned VSeed, VChart, VTable and GSAP load from unpkg
editorial-magazine	Python 3.10+, dependencies in its requirements.txt, and Chromium/Chrome for PNG export; font CDN with system fallbacks
life-chronicle	Python 3.10+, dependencies in its requirements.txt, and Chromium/Chrome for PNG export; pinned VInfo and font CDN, see environment setup
person-poster	Python 3.10+, Pillow, Python Playwright/Chromium; public VChart 2.1.7 CDN or a sourced local copy; see requirements.txt and environment setup for POSIX/PowerShell installation and capability limits

Image search, generation and cutout capabilities come from the host; follow the selected Skill’s asset requirements. Magazine templates contain placeholders to replace before delivery. See the owning repositories for VChart/VTable Skill requirements.

Use

After installation, ask your agent to use the selected Skill with your data. For example:

“Use chart-storytelling to explain retention changes in this CSV to our growth lead as a shareable HTML story.”
“Use editorial-magazine to turn this article and its sources into an editable HTML and PNG image series.”
“Use life-chronicle to create a biography poster from these sourced events and photos, with editable timeline text.”

Data-storytelling uses the current agent to author VSeed configurations and local scripts to assemble the output; it needs no hosted chart generation service. Images use host capabilities or the declared fallback. Web-PPT is a browser presentation, not a .pptx file.

Generated JavaScript/HTML is executable code. Preview your own or reviewed artifacts locally; the test browser is not a sandbox for arbitrary untrusted submissions.

Examples

The example gallery includes a CO₂ scrolling story, a Las Vegas Web-PPT, six editorial-magazine collections and four life-chronicle collections. Each case links its prompts and results and explains the available inputs and reproduction limits.

Development and maintenance

This section is for contributors editing Skills or running local tests. The default branch, main, contains the user-facing stable version. Day-to-day development and contribution PRs use develop; reviewed updates are published through a develop → main PR. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md.

Repository layout

Path	Contents
`skills/<skill-name>/`	Independently installable runtime: `SKILL.md`, references, templates/assets and scripts
`tests/<skill_name>/`	Skill-specific deterministic Python regressions; hyphens become underscores for Python imports
`tests/test_*`	Shared tooling/installation checks and Node.js browser/Story integration tests
`examples/<skill-name>/<case-name>/`	Curated examples with prompts, inputs, results and previews
`cases/<skill-name>/<case-name>/`	Fixed Agent prompts, inputs and acceptance guidance
`tests/browser/cases/<skill-name>/<case-id>/`	Fixed browser cases: configuration, inputs and expectations
`tests/browser/scripts/`	Browser smoke builds and checks; dependencies are pinned in `tests/browser/`
`.cache/skill-dev/<skill-name>/<run-name>/`	Ignored local workspaces, outputs, screenshots and logs
`docs/`	Contributor references; `docs/migration/` contains historical migration records

Keep each runtime Skill self-contained. It must not depend on tests/, cases/, examples/ or another Skill’s local directory. See contribution conventions for adding Skills and selecting checks.

Install from a local checkout

From the root of your local repository, install the working copy of a Skill:

npx skills add ./skills/chart-storytelling
npx skills add ./skills/editorial-magazine
npx skills add ./skills/life-chronicle
npx skills add ./skills/person-poster

Alternatively, copy the complete Skill directory into your agent’s skill directory, including its references, templates and scripts. Do not copy only SKILL.md. See the local debugging guide for Codex and Claude Code workspace setup. Refresh the installed copy after changing a Skill before retesting.

Regression tests

The Python maintenance environment requires Python 3.12+ and uv:

uv sync --locked
uv run pytest tests -q
uv run ruff check skills tests

Fixed browser cases live under tests/browser/cases/, with configuration, inputs and acceptance criteria together. After the browser setup in that guide, run uv run python tests/browser/scripts/smoke.py, or select --skill chart-storytelling / --case story-ppt. These checks do not call a model.

Skill task debugging

Use Codex, Claude Code or another compatible mature agent to run a fixed task or your own prompt and inputs. Follow local debugging to prepare an ignored .cache/skill-dev/<skill-name>/<run-name>/ workspace and retain artifacts, screenshots and available logs. This repository does not provide a model API harness or unified agent runner.

Fixed tasks cover chart-storytelling and person-poster. Browser smoke covers story HTML/Web-PPT and poster chart examples, HTML-only delivery with and without charts, PNG delivery without charts, ancestor clipping rejection and failed export. Person-poster also has one same-session real-person generation check; it is not an independent blind evaluation. Editorial-magazine and life-chronicle have script regressions, but no fixed tasks or browser smoke yet. Review generated results for data accuracy, task requirements and interactions; different correct visual designs are acceptable. Agent tasks are not run in CI.

Versioning

Skills maintained here are versioned together at repository level. Each formal Skills release is identified by a Git tag covering the Skill instructions, references, templates and scripts. VChart and VTable Skill versions are managed by their respective repositories.

Ordinary edits are identified by Git commits; each Skill change does not require a release tag.

Formal Skills releases use skills-vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH: patch versions contain compatible fixes, minor versions add Skills or compatible capabilities, and major versions cover removals, renames or incompatible usage changes.

Default installations follow main, so they can receive changes before a formal release. Maintainers declare release intent in .github/release-plan.json. Main PRs automatically preview changed release plans; merging a changed non-null version authorizes automatic publication after main CI passes. Null or unchanged plans do not publish. The plan is retained after publication, so later merges do not republish it. See the release procedure and published releases.

Each formal Skills Release includes skills-manifest.json and one ZIP per Skill. Distributors can use the manifest’s per-Skill content fingerprints to identify changes independently of repository versions. See the artifact contract.

Use a release tag or commit SHA to identify the version when reporting an issue or reproducing a result; branch contents can change. Dependency versions such as VTable 1.26.8 identify the underlying library, not the Skill release. Historical VMind SDK tags remain unchanged and belong to the earlier SDK.