ascii-art — Setup Guide¶
Source: nousresearch/hermes-agent
Skill: ascii-art
Installs: 338
The ascii-art skill enables Hermes agents to generate ASCII art, text banners, terminal graphics, and decorative text output. Ideal for terminal-native applications, CLI tool headers, markdown decoration, and creative text-based visualization.
Installation¶
npx skills add https://github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent --skill ascii-art
After install, reload skills:
- Hermes CLI: /reload-skills or restart session
- Hermes gateway: /restart or hermes gateway restart
Prerequisites¶
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| Hermes Agent | v0.20.0+ |
| Terminal | Unicode-capable terminal for best results |
| Python (optional) | For FIGlet/pyfiglet integration: pip install pyfiglet |
Capabilities¶
| Capability | Trigger | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Banner text | "Create a banner that says CORPUSIQ" | Large ASCII text banner |
| Box drawing | "Put this in a framed box" | Text surrounded by box-drawing chars |
| Logo generation | "Create an ASCII logo for Hermes" | Custom ASCII logo/art |
| Table formatting | "Display this as an ASCII table" | Formatted table with borders |
| Progress bars | "Show progress visually" | ASCII progress/loading bar |
| Decorative dividers | "Add a section divider" | Themed horizontal rules |
Key Features¶
- Multiple fonts: FIGlet integration for dozens of text styles
- Box styles: Single/double line, rounded, bold, dashed borders
- Color support: ANSI color codes for terminal output
- Markdown-compatible: Most ASCII art renders correctly in markdown code blocks
- Unicode blocks: Full block characters for smoother gradients and shapes
Fonts Available (FIGlet)¶
Standard, slant, mini, big, block, bubble, digital, ivrit, lean, script, shadow, small, smscript, smshadow, smslant, standard, term
CLI/Command Reference¶
The skill surfaces through Hermes' text generation:
- ASCII art appears in regular text output
- Combine with terminal() for FIGlet: figlet -f slant "CORPUSIQ"
- Python integration: pyfiglet.figlet_format("text", font="slant")
- Use in write_file() for headers in generated markdown/docs
CorpusIQ Use Cases¶
- CLI tool headers — Branded headers for CorpusIQ terminal tools
- README decoration — ASCII logos and dividers in GitHub READMEs
- Report formatting — Visual section breaks in automated reports
- Terminal UI — Progress indicators in agent terminal output
- Social media — ASCII art for text-only platforms (HN, Reddit comments)
- Docs branding — ASCII logos in corpusiq-docs sidebars
Troubleshooting¶
| Issue | Likely Cause | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Garbled output | Terminal missing Unicode support | Use basic ASCII chars only |
| Alignment off | Variable-width fonts | Switch to monospace font |
| FIGlet not found | Missing figlet package | apt install figlet or pip install pyfiglet |
Verification¶
After installation, verify the skill is loaded:
hermes skills list | grep ascii-art
Test with a banner request:
"Create a large ASCII banner that says HERMES in the slant font"