surprise-print

name

surprise-print

description

Research a set of current news headlines, prioritize uplifting and curiosity-driven stories, synthesize a visual theme, generate a playful surprise mini-poster image with the OpenAI Image API, center-crop it to the Hi-Print protocol ratio (5:8), and optionally print it via printdock. Use when a user wants a fun daily-news visual, a surprise print generated from real same-day stories, or an end-to-end research-to-image-to-printer demo.

Surprise Print

Turn today's news into one visually coherent, upbeat "news mood" print.

Run Behavior (Agent Rules)

• Use a single direct execution command for normal runs:

./skills/surprise-print/scripts/run_surprise_print.sh --print

• Prioritize fun and curiosity-forward headlines (science, culture, tech, human achievement).
• Avoid selecting or emphasizing gruesome, graphic, or tragedy-focused stories when alternatives exist.
• Do not check Codex Learnings.md for this skill unless the user explicitly asks.
• Do not run separate preflight probes (command -v, ad hoc pip checks, etc.). The runner bootstraps its own .venv when needed.
• The runner performs a printer readiness check before sending and skips the print if the device reports not-ready/error status.
• Use --no-print only if the user explicitly requests preview-only behavior.
• Keep user updates minimal: start, generation in progress, done/error.

Quick Start

• Dry run (news research + prompt only):

./skills/surprise-print/scripts/run_surprise_print.sh --dry-run

• Generate image but do not print:

./skills/surprise-print/scripts/run_surprise_print.sh --no-print

• Full run (research + generate + print):

./skills/surprise-print/scripts/run_surprise_print.sh

Printing is ON by default. To force print explicitly, run:

./skills/surprise-print/scripts/run_surprise_print.sh --print

Use --no-print only when you explicitly want to skip hardware output.

Workflow

1. Collect fresh headlines from multiple Google News RSS feeds.
2. Prefer uplifting/curiosity headlines and de-prioritize grim or graphic stories.
3. Build a compact theme summary and extract visual motifs.
4. Generate a text-free vertical editorial illustration in a playful, optimistic style via imagegen.
5. Auto-crop to printer-ready 5:8 ratio and print with printdock (unless --no-print is passed).
6. Save artifacts in output/surprise-print/<timestamp>/:
   • fact.json (news digest)
   • prompt.txt (final image prompt)
   • summary.md (headline/source trace)
   • surprise.png (generated image)
   • surprise_print_ready.png (printer-ready 5:8 crop)

Modes

• news-digest (default): analyze a set of current headlines with an upbeat, fun-first bias.
• on-this-day: optional historical surprise mode.
• random-summary: optional random-topic mode.

Important Options

• --news-max-items <int>: number of headlines to analyze (default 12).
• --mode <news-digest|on-this-day|random-summary>
• --print: force hardware print output.
• --pace <ms> and --timeout <sec>: BLE print tuning (default pace is 12 ms for safer sends).
• --dry-run: validate research + prompt without API calls or printing.

Printer Ratio Notes

• Hi-Print protocol payload target in this project is 640x1024 (5:8), not exact 2:3.
• The script generates high-resolution vertical art, then center-crops to an exact integer 5:8 image before printing.
• Crop output is validated and the run fails if ratio is not exactly 5:8.
• Keep key subjects near center to protect composition during crop.

API Key Setup

Set OPENAI_API_KEY in your shell startup file.

For your zsh setup, add this line to:

• /Users/peter/.zshrc

export OPENAI_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

Then restart the terminal (or run source /Users/peter/.zshrc).

Reference

• Prompt/theme tweaks: references/theme-ideas.md
• News source details: references/news-sources.md