<h1 align="center">Map Design</h1>
<p align="center"><b>Your coding agent cannot draw a coastline. With this skill it does not have to.</b></p>
<p align="center">
An agent skill that turns "poster of Lisbon in azulejo blue" or "map this CSV by state"<br>
into a real, accurate map: one self-contained HTML page, an SVG and a print-ready PNG.<br>
Real borders, coastlines and coordinates. No API keys. No runtime dependencies.
</p>
<p align="center">
<a href="https://github.com/ashishkaloge/map-design/actions/workflows/ci.yml"><img src="https://github.com/ashishkaloge/map-design/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg" alt="CI"></a>
<a href="LICENSE"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue.svg" alt="MIT license"></a>
<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Node.js-20%2B-339933" alt="Node.js 20+">
<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/dependencies-0-1b1b19" alt="No runtime dependencies">
<a href="https://agentskills.io"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Agent_Skills-compatible-1b1b19" alt="Agent Skills compatible"></a>
</p>
<p align="center">
<img src="docs/assets/hero.webp" width="920" alt="Six maps made with the skill: posters of Lisbon in cobalt on white, San Francisco in white on black, Tokyo in ink on paper and Manhattan in blueprint blue, a map of US population change by state from 2020 to 2024, and an antique-style map of the voyage of HMS Beagle.">
</p>
<p align="center"><sub>Street poster data: <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright">© OpenStreetMap contributors</a> (ODbL).</sub></p>
<p align="center"><code>npx skills add ashishkaloge/map-design</code></p>
<p align="center">
<a href="#ask-for-a-map">Ask for a map</a> ·
<a href="#why-a-skill">Why a skill</a> ·
<a href="#gallery">Gallery</a> ·
<a href="#install">Install</a> ·
<a href="#what-it-makes">What it makes</a> ·
<a href="#how-it-works">How it works</a> ·
<a href="#limits">Limits</a>
</p>
## Ask for a map
Once installed, ask your agent the way you would ask a designer:
- *"Make a poster of Lisbon in azulejo blue."*
- *"Map population change by US state from this Census CSV."*
- *"Where is Bhutan? Show it with a small globe."*
- *"Plot my trip: London, Dubai, Singapore, Sydney, Auckland, LA, New York, back to London."*
- *"Bubble map of our stores by revenue. The data is in stores.csv."*
- *"Poster of the streets around Juhu Beach with a pin where we met."*
The agent writes a short JSON spec, runs one command, looks at the PNG, fixes
what it sees, and hands you the files. Every place it resolved and every row it
could not match is listed, so nothing is silently guessed.
## Why a skill
A language model knows Lisbon sits on the Tagus. It does not know the shape of
the river, or where thousands of streets run. Ask an agent for a map without help and
you get hand-drawn blobs, invented coordinates, or Leaflet boilerplate that
needs a tile server and an API key.
Map Design splits the work. The model decides what the map should say. The
renderer supplies real geography and cartography.
| Map | The agent writes | The renderer draws |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [Lisbon poster](examples/lisbon/spec.json) | a 93-byte spec | 1 MB of paths: streets in an 8 km frame, the Tagus and its parks, with named features on hover |
| [Tokyo poster](examples/tokyo/spec.json) | 89 bytes | 1.2 MB: streets around the Imperial Palace, with names from the source data on hover |
| [US population change](examples/us-population-change/spec.json) | 661 bytes and a Census CSV | 50 states and DC, classed, labeled, with legend and source |
| [Voyage of HMS Beagle](examples/beagle-voyage/spec.json) | 22 stops | great-circle legs on an equal-area projection, numbered and dated |
Things a model gets wrong from memory and this skill gets right:
- **Joins.** "Korea, Rep.", "Côte d'Ivoire", "Türkiye", ISO codes, FIPS codes
and World Bank names all match. Rows that do not match are listed with the
closest names. Nothing is dropped quietly.
- **Ambiguous places.** "Lima" is also in Ohio and "Sydney" is also in Nova
Scotia. The report says which one it used and how to be explicit.
- **Projections.** Equal-area by default (Equal Earth, Albers USA with Alaska
and Hawaii, conic and azimuthal for regions). Antarctica is cropped from world
maps unless the data goes there. No Mercator world maps.
- **Honest encodings.** Raw counts on a choropleth trigger a warning. Diverging
palettes need a meaningful midpoint. Every map carries its source.
## Gallery
Every map below is real data, rendered by the skill from the spec it links to.
Street posters use [© OpenStreetMap contributors](https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) data (ODbL).
<table>
<tr>
<td width="33%"><img src="docs/assets/gallery/san-francisco.webp" alt="Street map poster of San Francisco, white streets on black"></td>
<td width="33%"><img src="docs/assets/gallery/venice.webp" alt="Poster of Venice in terracotta, showing canals and footpaths"></td>
<td width="33%"><img src="docs/assets/gallery/mumbai.webp" alt="Poster of Mumbai with magenta highways and cyan streets on deep violet"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><sub><b>San Francisco</b> · <code>noir</code> · <a href="examples/san-francisco/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
<td><sub><b>Venice</b> · <code>terracotta</code>. Few streets for cars, so it switched to footpaths · <a href="examples/venice/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
<td><sub><b>Mumbai</b> · <code>neon</code> · <a href="examples/mumbai/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><img src="docs/assets/gallery/tokyo.webp" alt="Poster of central Tokyo in black ink on washi paper with a red seal"></td>
<td><img src="docs/assets/gallery/lisbon.webp" alt="Poster of Lisbon in cobalt blue on white"></td>
<td><img src="docs/assets/gallery/manhattan.webp" alt="Poster of Manhattan as a white-on-blue blueprint"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><sub><b>Tokyo</b> · <code>sumi</code> · <a href="examples/tokyo/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
<td><sub><b>Lisbon</b> · <code>azulejo</code> · <a href="examples/lisbon/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
<td><sub><b>Manhattan</b> · <code>blueprint</code> · <a href="examples/manhattan/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
</tr>
</table>
<table>
<tr>
<td width="50%"><img src="docs/assets/gallery/us-population-change.webp" alt="Choropleth of US population change by state, 2020 to 2024"></td>
<td width="50%"><img src="docs/assets/gallery/world-density.webp" alt="World choropleth of population density by country"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><sub><b>Choropleth</b> by US state, diverging around zero. US Census Bureau data · <a href="examples/us-population-change/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
<td><sub><b>Choropleth</b> by country from the built-in table, no data file needed · <a href="examples/world-density/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><img src="docs/assets/gallery/beagle-voyage.webp" alt="Antique-style world map of the voyage of HMS Beagle with numbered ports"></td>
<td><img src="docs/assets/gallery/largest-cities.webp" alt="Dark world map with amber bubbles sized by city population"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><sub><b>Route</b> · <code>antique</code>, numbered and dated stops · <a href="examples/beagle-voyage/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
<td><sub><b>Bubbles</b> · <code>ink</code>, area proportional to population · <a href="examples/largest-cities/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><img src="docs/assets/gallery/us-cities.webp" alt="Spike map of US urban areas by population"></td>
<td><img src="docs/assets/gallery/where-is-bhutan.webp" alt="Locator map of Bhutan with its largest towns and an inset globe"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><sub><b>Spikes</b> on Albers USA · <a href="examples/us-cities/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
<td><sub><b>Locator</b> · <code>atlas</code>, with cities and an inset globe · <a href="examples/where-is-bhutan/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><img src="docs/assets/gallery/around-the-world.webp" alt="World map of a seven-flight trip around the world along great circles"></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><sub><b>Flights</b> along great circles from airport codes · <a href="examples/around-the-world/spec.json">spec</a></sub></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>
## Install
Works with any agent that reads [Agent Skills](https://agentskills.io): Claude
Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, OpenCode and others.
```bash
npx skills add ashishkaloge/map-design
```
In Claude Code you can also install it as a plugin:
```text
/plugin marketplace add ashishkaloge/map-design
/plugin install map-design@map-design
```
Or copy `skills/map-design/` into your agent's skills folder, for example
`~/.claude/skills/map-design`.
Requirements: Node.js 20 or newer. PNG export uses a Chrome, Edge, Brave or
Chromium you already have; without one you still get HTML and SVG, and the
HTML page has a PNG button. City posters and the `streets` basemap need an
internet connection to fetch OpenStreetMap data as vector tiles. Optional raster
basemaps also download tiles; provider terms and caching differ. See
[basemaps](skills/map-design/references/basemaps.md).
### Use it without an agent
The CLI is the same one the agent runs. Run these from the repository folder
(after `git clone https://github.com/ashishkaloge/map-design.git && cd map-design`),
or use the full path to `map.mjs` from anywhere. `render` writes its files next
to the spec; `poster` writes them to the folder you run it in.
```bash
node skills/map-design/scripts/map.mjs render examples/world-density/spec.json
node skills/map-design/scripts/map.mjs poster --place "Kyoto" --country JPN --theme sumi --radius 3
node skills/map-design/scripts/map.mjs poster --lat 19.0990 --lon 72.8265 --title "Juhu" --theme neon --radius 3 --pin "Juhu Beach"
node skills/map-design/scripts/map.mjs find "Springfield"
node skills/map-design/scripts/map.mjs themes
```
## What it makes
| Kind | For | Example spec |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `choropleth` | Rates by country, by state or province (251 countries and territories), by US state or US county | [US population change](examples/us-population-change/spec.json) |
| `bubbles` | Totals at places, circle area ∝ value | [Largest cities](examples/largest-cities/spec.json) |
| `spikes` | Many values at points, height ∝ value | [US urban areas](examples/us-cities/spec.json) |
| `points` | Locations, colored by category | [spec reference](skills/map-design/references/spec.md#points) |
| `route` | Trips, voyages, itineraries, flights by airport code | [HMS Beagle](examples/beagle-voyage/spec.json) |
| `flows` | Movement with volume: migration, trade, traffic | [spec reference](skills/map-design/references/spec.md#flows) |
| `locator` | "Where is it?" with context and an inset globe | [Bhutan](examples/where-is-bhutan/spec.json) |
| `poster` | Any city's streets as print art, from OpenStreetMap, with optional labeled pins | [Lisbon](examples/lisbon/spec.json) |
**Themes for data maps:** `paper` (default), `atlas`, `ink`, `antique`, `swiss`, `blueprint`.
**Themes for posters:** `noir`, `paper`, `mono`, `blueprint`, `sumi`, `terracotta`, `azulejo`, `neon`, `forest`.
Every map is one SVG with its fonts embedded, so it looks the same in a
browser, a slide or a print shop. The HTML adds hover details that outline the
feature under the cursor (a country and its value, or on posters and street
basemaps a street's name and class, a park's area, or a landmark's estimated
height where available), zoom and pan, and SVG and PNG download buttons.
It makes no network requests.
A spec is short:
```json
{
"kind": "choropleth",
"region": "usa",
"title": "The South and Mountain West grew; New York, Illinois and California shrank",
"data": "states.csv",
"join": "fips",
"value": "change",
"scale": { "type": "threshold", "breaks": [-1, 0, 2, 4, 6], "palette": "brown-teal", "center": 0 },
"format": { "suffix": "%" },
"source": "US Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 population estimates"
}
```
Full reference: [spec.md](skills/map-design/references/spec.md).
Design guidance the agent follows: [cartography.md](skills/map-design/references/cartography.md).
## How it works
1. **Resolve.** Every location in the spec is looked up in bundled data:
7,342 cities and towns, 3,244 airports, 242 countries, first-level regions
for 251 countries and territories, and every US state and county. Ambiguities and misses go
into the report.
2. **Join and classify.** Rows join to boundaries by code or name. Values are
classed by quantiles, natural breaks, thresholds or a continuous ramp, with
perceptually even palettes.
3. **Project.** The renderer picks an equal-area projection that suits the
region, or uses the one you name.
4. **Draw.** Base map, data, borders, symbols, labels placed without overlaps,
then the title, legend and source. Only the font faces and character sets
the map uses are embedded.
5. **Export.** HTML, SVG and PNG (2×, or 3× for posters: 3600×4800 px, 12×16 in
at 300 dpi).
Posters read streets, buildings, water, parks and rail from OpenStreetMap vector
tiles (the OpenMapTiles schema, served free by [OpenFreeMap](https://openfreemap.org))
and cache them, so a re-render with the same cached tiles can work offline.
Roads fade by class, blocks fill with building footprints in frames up to about 6 km across, and
whole-city frames up to 60 km wide retain residential roads where the chosen
zoom and detail level include them. If the tile service is
unreachable, posters fall back to one query to the public Overpass API. Car-free
centers such as Venice automatically get footpaths.
The skill is about 9 MB: 8 MB of simplified open data, 0.8 MB of fonts and the
renderer. Bundled vector maps and spec checks work offline. Poster downloads and
requested basemap tiles require network access; generated files are self-contained.
## Limits
- **Borders** follow Natural Earth's de facto view. Disputed areas are drawn the
way Natural Earth draws them, which does not match every government's official
position. See [cartography.md](skills/map-design/references/cartography.md#borders-and-names).
- **Small places** outside the gazetteer need `lon`/`lat`.
- **Posters** depend on OpenFreeMap's free tile service, which has no uptime
guarantee, with the public Overpass API as the fallback. Every download is
cached. Building footprints come from the tiles, and some sources merge
neighbouring buildings.
- **Labels** are placed greedily. On dense maps some are left out; the report
lists them.
- **Basemaps** are optional: `streets` draws vector streets in any projection,
and raster presets embed static Mercator tiles. Provider access, attribution and
export requirements apply. No road routing, terrain shading or your own boundary
files yet.
- **Statistics in `builtin:countries`** are Natural Earth's 2019 estimates. For
current figures, give the agent a source to fetch.
## Contributing
Bug reports with the spec and the PNG are the most useful thing you can send.
New themes, label placement improvements and gallery examples built on open,
cited data are welcome. See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md).
## License
MIT for the code. Bundled data is public domain (Natural Earth, US Census
Bureau, OurAirports). Fonts are under the SIL Open Font License. Posters
contain OpenStreetMap data, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Details:
[THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md](THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md).
