Replicate image generation & prompt craft

This skill is the image layer on top of Replicate: how to call an image model from code and how to write a prompt that the specific model family actually obeys. Two competencies braided together — mechanics (run path, output handling, levers, image inputs) and prompt shape per family (Gemini/Nano-Banana wants prose, Flux wants dense description, gpt-image wants instructions). If the question is platform plumbing — auth, billing, deployments, webhooks, running an LLM or audio model — that is replicate, not this skill.

Pinned facts (verified 2026-06-02). Slugs and parameter names are the load-bearing details that make code run, and they drift — the full per-model schema lives in references/models.md so this file stays evergreen. Confirm any exact slug/param on the model page before quoting it as fact.

First move

export REPLICATE_API_TOKEN=r8_...     # both clients read this automatically
npm install replicate                  # Node; pip install replicate for Python