krea-ai

Krea AI - Generation and enhancement

Use Krea through the CLI by default, with the Krea MCP server as fallback. This skill is organized around intent-first workflow prefabs: classify the user's verb + modality + flavor, load the matching workflows/*.md, and follow that recipe instead of improvising from a model menu.

For developers building apps that call Krea programmatically, use the sibling krea-build/ skill instead.

Bootstrap

Prefer the Krea CLI whenever it is installed and authenticated:

which krea && krea doctor 2>&1 | head -5

A healthy CLI prints api auth success for list_models. If the CLI is missing:

npm install -g @krea-ai/cli
krea auth login
# or export KREA_API_KEY=...

Use MCP only when the CLI is unavailable and Krea tools such as list_models, get_model_schema, generate_image, generate_video, enhance_image, get_job, and upload_asset are connected. If neither surface is available, stop and ask the user to install the CLI or connect MCP. Do not use direct HTTP for normal generation except documented flows such as LoRA training.

Before the first generation in a session, optionally run the passive update check only if this skill directory contains scripts/update-check.sh:

bash /path/to/krea-ai/scripts/update-check.sh 2>/dev/null || true

It never blocks generation. Surface UPGRADE_AVAILABLE or JUST_UPGRADED once; otherwise stay quiet.

Universal UX rules

1. Concise output. Send result path/URL plus one useful sentence. No raw IDs or JSON dumps.
2. Detect the user's language from their first message and reply in it. Technical params stay English.
3. Vision-first. Read attached images before generating, and read every generated still/frame with the Read tool before approving it, showing the user, or feeding it to a downstream model. Critique each output on its own line per references/vision-qa.md — composition, named action present, identifying details, lighting, continuity hook for the next clip. Never approve a batch with a one-line "all of them look great"; that is the rubber-stamp failure mode that produces broken endImages and Seedance refusals downstream.
4. No premature questions for cheap ops. For cheap images/enhance, pick sane defaults. For expensive ops, do not answer prematurely: run campaign brief intake when it applies, clarify once, run references/cost-preflight.md for upcoming spend, and maintain references/budget-tracking.md for the session's running total so 402 Payment Required is never the first signal that credits ran out.
5. Progress reporting is mandatory for async polling over 30 seconds. Use references/progress-reporting.md.
6. Always call krea models list --json or MCP list_models before choosing a model. Use references/model-catalog.md to resolve archetypes to live IDs.
7. Always inspect the model schema before submitting. Do not guess field names such as imageUrl, imageUrls, startImage, duration, or resolution.
8. Normalize generation references to Krea-hosted assets before generation. Local files and arbitrary external image/video/audio URLs must be uploaded to Krea first; only pass already-Krea/approved asset URLs directly. Product/page URLs used for research are not generation references.
9. Honor KREA_PREFERENCES.md or a ## Krea preferences section in project docs when present.
10. Do not pretend bad outputs are fine. Name the mismatch and offer a concrete retry path.
11. Reference before prose. If the user uses a term with multiple legitimate visual meanings (storyboard, mood board, key visual, hero shot, mockup, tearsheet, look book), ask for a reference image before interpreting it in your own visual language.
12. Taste gate, not just fidelity gate. Before delivering campaign-tier output, write one sentence to yourself answering: is this recognizably premium creative, or is it category-cliche? If cliche, iterate before shipping.
13. No default anchoring in routing questions. If asking image-vs-video, draft-vs-final, or similar, present options neutrally without "default if you say go" phrasing.

Campaign brief intake

Mandatory before routing when the request involves a product, brand, campaign, ads, shorts, social pack, or more than 3 deliverables. Skip only for one-shot quick generations.

Ask once, in a single compact message, for any missing items:

1. Vocabulary: restate loaded terms (storyboard, ad, short, campaign, draft, hero) in the user's likely industry context. Use references/artifact-taxonomy.md when terms are ambiguous.
2. References: ask for layout, style, tone, or format references before generating any planning artifact.
3. Brand voice: infer one sentence from the product, packaging, refs, and user brief; confirm if uncertain.
4. Success criteria: one line per deliverable covering audience, platform, and intended action.
5. Levers: keep format, content, palette, and voice separate when responding to feedback such as "boring", "meh", or "surprise me". For ad/campaign work, load references/marketing-creative-anatomy.md and separate mode, format, hook, setting, talent, product, brand, reference path, and CTA.

Output a 5-line confirmed brief, then route.

Routing - intent -> workflow

Intent (verb + modality + flavor)	Workflow
make a short vertical / social / TikTok / Reels / Shorts / GRWM video, <=15s	workflows/social-video-short.md
ad storyboard / key visual / campaign sheet / social pack / agency-style product layout	workflows/key-visual-sheet.md
make a longer narrative video with hard cuts, >15s	workflows/narrative-video-long.md
animate a still / image-to-video / make this picture move	workflows/image-to-video-animate.md
professional animation / anime series / storyboard-to-video / asset bible / shotlist-to-sequence / studio retakes	use sibling ../krea-animation/SKILL.md
make me an image (no quality bar stated, exploring)	workflows/image-fast-iterate.md
production-quality image / for delivery / hero asset	workflows/image-final-render.md
transform / edit / restyle this image	workflows/image-edit-i2i.md
poster / typography / text-heavy image	workflows/image-text-poster.md
portrait with face refs	workflows/portrait-with-refs.md
product hero photo / e-com hero shot	workflows/product-photo-hero.md
product lifestyle / model wearing / scene composition	workflows/product-photo-lifestyle.md
3D screenshot -> photoreal render (archviz)	workflows/archviz-3d-to-render.md
upscale / 4K / enhance / make sharper	workflows/enhance-upscale.md
creative enhance / restyle / re-light	workflows/enhance-creative.md
train a LoRA / fine-tune on these images	workflows/lora-train-and-use.md
product URL -> full campaign	workflows/full-ad-campaign.md

Hard rule: never call generate video without first loading a workflows/*.md file. Workflows enforce cost-preflight, clarify-once, storyboard approval for short video, progress pings, and banned-move lists. Bypassing them is what wasted ~5,000 CU on 2026-05-17.

References

Load only what the active workflow needs:

• references/cli-or-mcp.md - side-by-side CLI and MCP operations.
• references/model-catalog.md - archetypes to resolve through live list_models.
• references/media-inputs.md - uploads, local files, image refs, start/end frames.
• references/async-polling.md - job lifecycle semantics.
• references/prompt-engineering.md - prompt handling by modality.
• references/artifact-taxonomy.md - disambiguate storyboard, key visual, mood board, hero shot, mockup, tearsheet, and look book.
• references/marketing-creative-anatomy.md - campaign/ad tuple, hook families, static format families, and reference-driven vs composed paths.
• references/storyboard-variations.md - axes and delivery pattern for cheap storyboard variants before video.
• references/story-spine.md - PROTAGONIST/WANT/OBSTACLE/STAKES/TURN/NEW-NORMAL gate. Mandatory before storyboarding any narrative >15s.
• references/shot-grammar.md - scene-vs-shot vocabulary, beat patterns, match cuts. A 60s narrative is 20–30 shots, not 6.
• references/dialogue-and-audio.md - TTS pipeline, ambient bed, ffmpeg audio mux with adelay/amix. Mandatory when SHOTLIST.md has dialogue.
• references/ugc-social-video.md - UGC realism cues, storyboard template, banned polish words, and adversarial QA.
• references/troubleshooting.md - known CLI/model issues and recovery.
• references/preferences.md - project-level overrides.
• references/cost-preflight.md - mandatory approval before >100 CU or video/training jobs.
• references/progress-reporting.md - mandatory pings during long async polling.
• references/models/ - per-model prompting playbooks (prompt structure, media-path rules, engine quirks, failure recovery, pacing guardrails). Load only when the active workflow has resolved that model. Today: seedance-2.md.

Related skill

Use krea-animation/ for professional animation production: anime series, asset bibles, character model sheets, storyboards, shot lists, AI video jobs, edit assembly, QA, and retakes.

Use krea-build/ for developer integration work: API clients, frontend snippets, validation, and repeatable app code.

Marketing, product, campaign, and architectural visualization requests stay in this skill and route to krea-ai/workflows/:

• Marketing/product work: workflows/product-photo-hero.md, workflows/product-photo-lifestyle.md, workflows/key-visual-sheet.md, workflows/social-video-short.md, workflows/full-ad-campaign.md.
• Architectural visualization: workflows/archviz-3d-to-render.md.

Campaign pre-delivery self-eval

Before delivering campaign-tier work, answer these privately and fix any "no" or "not sure":

1. Artifact match: is this the shape the user asked for in their industry's vocabulary?
2. Reference adherence: if a style ref exists, would a viewer place both in the same campaign?
3. Fidelity: are brand assets, label details, palette, typography, and claims correct?
4. Taste: what is the one distinctive element that keeps this from feeling category-cliche?
5. Voice: does the copy/layout match the brand voice surfaced in intake?
6. Variation discipline: did each variation move a meaningful lever, not just wallpaper details?
7. Cost honesty: did this spend more than 2x the minimal CU path, and what intake question would have prevented that?
8. Next-step legibility: can the user approve, reject, or request a tweak without extra explanation?

Filename pattern

For local outputs, use yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss-short-name.ext with .png for images and .mp4 for videos. Keep short names lowercase and hyphenated.