Thumbnail Generation

Default entry point for a brand-new thumbnail. Searches Algrow's database for topically-similar videos with proven outlier performance and renders them as a clickable grid in the thumbnail studio widget. Requires a specific YouTube niche or video title (2+ meaningful words) — generic single words like 'thumbnail' or 'video' are rejected.

Submit a thumbnail generation request to the configured image backend (Nano Banana Pro, gpt-image-2, or a Seedream variant). Returns immediately with a task_id; the inline widget polls for the result automatically. Default aspect ratio 16:9. Accepts up to 8 reference URLs (YouTube links, bare video IDs, i.ytimg.com URLs, direct image URLs). Costs 1 credit per image regardless of model.

One-call pipeline for 'make a thumbnail in the design of @channel'. Pass the video title + the channel and the server runs the whole Studio pipeline itself: pulls the channel's top thumbnails, vision-analyses them, matches the best one to the title, engineers the prompt (overlay text included) and renders. 1 credit (3 with fast=true); typically 60–240s with wait=true.

Apply a plain-English edit to an already-generated thumbnail — a surgical img2img pass, not a regeneration. The finished image goes back to the image model as the canvas plus the instruction; everything the instruction doesn't cover stays identical, and the result lands as a NEW version in the widget's version strip (earlier versions are never overwritten). Returns immediately with a task_id; the widget polls check_thumbnail_status. Powers the widget's Edit box, but Claude may also call it directly when the user asks for a specific edit to an existing render — base_image_url must be a real URL from a completed generation, never invented.

ONE tool for everything reusable in thumbnail generation — mirrors the Studio's unified Presets. A preset is keyed by a free-form label and snapshots whatever you have set: custom instructions, a subject face (auto-added as the on-camera person), style reference thumbnail(s), a borrowed channel, and default model / aspect_ratio / resolution / fast_mode / realistic_mode. action='list' returns your presets (tagged kind: full or text) plus recent_channels; action='save' creates or updates by label; action='remove' deletes one. Apply a preset by passing its label as channel_preset to generate_thumbnail. Free.

Your generated-thumbnail history, newest first — every thumbnail you've made, whether it came from the browser Studio, the MCP tools, or the REST API (one shared history). Each item carries the final image URL(s), the title it was made for, model, aspect ratio and timestamp. Reuse an old thumbnail as a style reference by passing its image URL in reference_urls. Paged with limit + offset; has_more signals another page. Free.

Internal poll for the thumbnail studio widget — looks up the status of a generation task by task_id. The widget calls this on a loop while a generation is in flight; Claude should not normally invoke it from chat.

Check whether a reference image has a person in it, so you can offer to put the user's own face in the render instead of a stranger's. Cheaper and faster than a full thumbnail analysis, and cached per image for six hours. Free — no credits.

Find photos of a person by name so one can be used as an identity reference — either as a character reference when generating, or as the face for swap_face. Returns candidate image URLs; run the chosen one through import_face before rendering with it. Free — no credits.

Copy a face image into Algrow storage and return a stable URL the render pipeline can always fetch. Always run an external face URL through this before using it as a character reference or in swap_face — hotlinked sources can start refusing the download at render time. Free — no credits.

Put a real person's face onto a thumbnail you already generated, leaving everything else in the image untouched. base_image_url must come from a completed generation; face_url is the person's photo (run external URLs through import_face first). Costs 1 credit, or 3 with fast. Returns a pending task_id — the inline widget polls it, so pass wait=true from clients without one.

Record a thumbs up or down on a generated thumbnail, with an optional note. Sending the same task_id again updates the existing rating rather than adding a second one. Free — no credits.