Anima

Ask Claude for a biology figure. Get an interactive, sourced, isometric one.

A Claude Code skill that turns "show me how cocaine and amphetamine act differently at a dopamine synapse" into a live, standalone page: real structures, a mechanism you can toggle, a readout driven by one small model, and a citation for every number on screen.

Try every figure live (no install) · 35-second launch video · Full demo (MP4) · Request a figure

Why it exists

Most science graphics are either static diagrams or confident-looking animations with no sources. This skill holds itself to a different standard:

• Show the real structure. Receptors, transporters, vesicles, brain regions and skeletal formulas, drawn as what they are. A mechanical metaphor is allowed only when it is labelled as one.
• Every number is cited. If a figure shows a half-life, a homology or a trial size, the source is on the page, with its conditions. Numbers that could not be verified are left out, not rounded into plausibility.
• Say how sure we are. Each figure separates what is established from what is one leading model, and what is rodent work from what is human work. The estrogen figure states outright that the human evidence is weak.
• Make it move for a reason. Toggles change the mechanism, not the decoration: block a receptor, block a transporter, change glucose, change exposure.
• Educational, never advice. Drug figures explain mechanism only: no doses, no routes, no schedules, no recommendations.

Install

npx skills add Garinmckayl/anima -g -a claude-code

Requires Claude Code and Node.js 20.10 or later. The drawing kit uses only Node built-ins and has zero runtime dependencies. Chrome or Chromium is needed only for the capture and verification scripts.

Use it

In Claude Code:

/anima show how cocaine and amphetamine act differently at the dopamine transporter, with a drug selector and sourced mechanisms; standalone HTML

/anima visualize semaglutide acting on a pancreatic beta cell, with glucose-dependent insulin release, cited label numbers and an educational-use note

/anima show D1 and D2 receptor signalling in a striatal neuron, with the G-protein cycle and a receptor-antagonist toggle

/anima make a mid-sagittal brain showing the mesolimbic pathway and one model of how it changes with repeated drug exposure; cite every claim

More to try:

/anima show how CRISPR-Cas9 finds and cuts a target sequence, with a guide-mismatch toggle and cited cleavage numbers

/anima animate the mitochondrial electron transport chain with a proton-gradient readout and an inhibitor toggle

Name the biological subject, the mechanism to explain, the audience and the output format. The skill sizes the job first (Figure, Hero or Epic), collects sources before drawing, builds the page, then checks it the way a reviewer would: zoomed in, in both themes, at phone width.

Gallery

Each figure builds to a standalone HTML page in dark and light themes. The links open the live pages, so they run in your browser. To open them from a clone, use the files in examples/.