tikz-render

name

tikz-render

description

This skill should be used when the user wants to "render a TikZ diagram", "compile LaTeX to SVG", "create an architecture diagram", "draw a neural network figure", "convert .tex to SVG", "use PetarV diagrams", "use nntikz", or asks to draw any specific architecture (BiGRU, BiMamba, JEPA, KAN, CTC trellis, ST-GCN, transformer, LSTM, ResNet). Handles both inline TikZ snippets and full .tex files. Outputs clean SVG files suitable for papers and dashboards.

TikZ → SVG Compiler

Compile TikZ/LaTeX source into clean SVG via pdflatex + dvisvgm.

Compilation (always use the script)

# From the plugin directory:
skills/tikz-render/scripts/compile.sh <input.tex> [output.svg]

The script handles wrapping, compilation, and conversion. Never reconstruct the pipeline from scratch — wrong flags (--pdf is mandatory, --no-fonts for portability) silently produce broken output.

Input forms accepted:

• Inline TikZ snippet (no \documentclass) → script wraps automatically
• Full .tex file with \documentclass → used as-is
• Write any snippet to a tmp file first: echo "..." > /tmp/fig.tex

Choosing a Starting Template

Before writing TikZ from scratch, check existing libraries:

Read references/library-catalog.md for all available templates with verified raw GitHub URLs.

Quick decision:

• BiGRU, LSTM, Transformer, GRU → nntikz (tikz/gru.tex, tikz/transformer.tex)
• BiLSTM, Self-Attention, GCN, MPNN, MLP → PetarV-/TikZ
• 3D CNN block diagrams (ResNet/ConvNeXt) → PlotNeuralNet (Python→LaTeX)
• BiMamba, JEPA masking, KAN, CTC trellis, ST-GCN keypoints → no upstream template

Custom Architectures (no template exists)

Read references/custom-architectures.md for working TikZ skeletons:

• BiMamba / Causal Mamba block
• JEPA masking diagram (context / target / EMA)
• KAN layer (B-spline edges)
• CTC trellis lattice
• ST-GCN tongue keypoint graph (16 keypoints)
• Full UltraSuite JEPA pipeline block diagram

Fetching from a Library

# nntikz GRU (best for BiGRU paper figure)
curl -L "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fraserlove/nntikz/master/tikz/gru.tex" -o /tmp/gru.tex
skills/tikz-render/scripts/compile.sh /tmp/gru.tex /tmp/gru.svg

# PetarV BiLSTM
curl -L "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PetarV-/TikZ/master/Bidirectional%20long%20short-term%20memory/bidirectional_long_short-term_memory.tex" -o /tmp/bilstm.tex
skills/tikz-render/scripts/compile.sh /tmp/bilstm.tex /tmp/bilstm.svg

Smoke Test

skills/tikz-render/scripts/compile.sh \
  skills/tikz-render/examples/minimal.tex /tmp/test.svg
# Expect: "SVG written to: /tmp/test.svg (XXXX bytes)"

Error Handling

If pdflatex fails, the script prints the last 30 lines of the log. Common fixes:

Error	Fix
Undefined control sequence \usetikzlibrary	Add library to preamble
Package pgf Error	Add \usepackage{pgf}
Missing $ inserted	Math mode issue — check node labels
dvisvgm: no PDF file found	pdflatex failed silently — check full log

Additional Resources

• references/library-catalog.md — all 5 TikZ sources with verified URLs and use-case guide
• references/custom-architectures.md — working stubs for BiMamba, JEPA, KAN, CTC, ST-GCN
• examples/minimal.tex — bare standalone for pipeline testing
• scripts/compile.sh — the full pdflatex+dvisvgm pipeline