ImaGen/CLAUDE.md

ImaGen — Project Instructions

ImaGen is a model-agnostic image-generation framework. It has a single opinionated CLI (imagen) that dispatches to whichever backend the user configured — local FLUX on mRock via ComfyUI today, Replicate or DALL-E tomorrow, something else next year. The framework owns plumbing (config, output, naming, sidecars, prompt enrichment); each adapter owns the schema and lifecycle of its own block in ~/.config/imagen.yaml.

Architecture

cmd/imagen/                CLI shell — generate, backends, config, serve
internal/backend/          Backend interface + Registry + Mock reference impl
internal/prompt/           Style preset registry (embedded styles.yaml)
internal/output/           Filename templating, image writer, JSON sidecar
internal/config/           YAML loader, validation, sample generator
internal/server/           HTTP stub (not implemented yet — follow-up issue)
docs/                      architecture.md, usage.md

Data flow for imagen generate:

1. Parse flags, load config (internal/config).
2. Resolve the requested instance name to a config block, then the block's type to a registered constructor in backend.Default.
3. Apply style preset (internal/prompt) to the prompt.
4. Call backend.Generate(ctx, Request). The adapter returns a *Result with an image stream + metadata.
5. Stream to disk via internal/output. If write_metadata_json is on, a sidecar <image>.json is written next to it.

Backend contract

type Backend interface {
    Name() string
    Generate(ctx context.Context, req Request) (*Result, error)
}

Request carries the cross-backend fields (prompt, negative, size, steps, seed, style preset, free-form BackendOpts). Result returns the image bytes via an io.ReadCloser, the MIME type, and a metadata map (model name, seed actually used, latency, cost-estimate, …).

Adding a new adapter

1. Create internal/backend/<adapter>.go (e.g. comfyui.go). Define a struct that holds whatever the adapter needs (HTTP client, model id, token).
2. Add a constructor func New<Adapter>(name string, cfg map[string]any) (Backend, error). Read fields from cfg — that map is the adapter's own block from imagen.yaml minus the type: key. Resolve secrets from env vars (api_token_env, api_key_env) — never accept tokens inline.
3. Implement Name() (return the user-facing instance name) and Generate(ctx, Request).
4. In init() call Register("<type-name>", New<Adapter>).
5. Anonymous-import the package from cmd/imagen/main.go if it lives in a separate package, so the init() runs.
6. Add a smoke test under internal/backend/<adapter>_test.go. Network tests should be guarded by testing.Short() or an env var.

Config

~/.config/imagen.yaml (override with --config). Top-level keys:

• default_backend — instance name used when --backend is omitted.
• output.directory / output.naming / output.write_metadata_json.
• backends: — map of instance-name → {type, …adapter-specific…}.

The framework parses type and stuffs the rest into BackendSpec.Raw. The adapter is free to define any schema it likes inside its block.

Credentials

Never hardcode. Always reference env-var names from the config:

flux-dev-replicate:
  type: replicate
  api_token_env: REPLICATE_API_TOKEN

The adapter then os.Getenv("REPLICATE_API_TOKEN") at construction and fails fast if unset. Tokens never go through imagen.yaml in plaintext.

How the /imagine skill calls into imagen

The skill (issue #4) wraps imagen generate and post-processes the path it prints on stdout. Slash-command surface area:

/imagine "a cat in a fishbowl" --style blog-header --size 1024x1024

The skill resolves to imagen generate "<prompt>" --backend <default> … and returns the image path so otto can attach it to a chat reply.

References

• mAi project conventions: ~/.m/docs/msystem.md
• Backend follow-ups: ImaGen issues #2 (ComfyUI on mRock), #3 (Replicate), #4 (skill)
• mRock GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, 16 GB VRAM, runs Ollama + F5-TTS

House rules

• No technical debt. No TODOs in landed code. If something can't be done now, open an issue.
• All user-facing strings: ASCII or proper Unicode (Umlaute), never ae/oe/ue.
• Tests live next to the package they cover (*_test.go). No tests/ dir.
• go build ./... and go test ./... must be clean before any commit.
• Run task build (or make build) for the full build; both call into go build -o bin/imagen ./cmd/imagen.