GifGrep — OpenClaw Skill

What This Skill Does

The GifGrep skill gives your OpenClaw agent the ability to search GIF providers like Tenor and Giphy, download results, browse them in a terminal UI, and extract stills or contact sheets from animations. It turns your agent into a visual content assistant that can find the perfect GIF for any situation and prepare it for sharing.

The workflow is simple: search, preview, download, and optionally extract frames. GifGrep supports JSON output for scripting, URL-only output for piping, and a TUI mode for interactive browsing. Contact sheets -- single PNG grids of sampled frames -- are especially useful for documentation, pull request descriptions, and quick reviews where you need a visual overview of an animation.

GifGrep works out of the box with Tenor's demo API key. For Giphy, you'll need to set a GIPHY_API_KEY. The skill pairs well with messaging skills like BlueBubbles or Discord for sending GIFs in conversations.

Example Prompts

Find me 5 GIFs of cats being dramatic and show their URLs

Search for a "thumbs up" GIF and download the best one to my Desktop

Extract a still frame from this GIF at the 1.5 second mark

Create a 3x3 contact sheet from clip.gif so I can see all the key frames at once

Search Giphy for "office handshake" and give me the results as JSON

Find a celebratory GIF and send it to the team Discord channel

Download the top 3 reaction GIFs for "mind blown" and reveal them in Finder

Requirements

Binary dependency: gifgrep

• macOS: brew install steipete/tap/gifgrep
• Go: go install github.com/steipete/gifgrep/cmd/gifgrep@latest
• API keys: Tenor works by default; Giphy requires GIPHY_API_KEY

Setup on KiwiClaw

GifGrep is pre-installed on all KiwiClaw tenant machines. Tenor search works out of the box. To enable Giphy, add your GIPHY_API_KEY in the KiwiClaw dashboard under environment variables. No other setup needed.

Setup Self-Hosted

1. Install GifGrep: brew install steipete/tap/gifgrep
2. Verify: gifgrep --version
3. Test: gifgrep cats --max 3
4. Optional: Set GIPHY_API_KEY for Giphy access
5. Optional: Set TENOR_API_KEY for higher Tenor rate limits

Related Skills

• BlueBubbles -- send downloaded GIFs via iMessage
• Discord -- share GIFs in Discord channels and DMs
• Slack -- post GIFs to Slack channels
• Nano PDF -- embed GIF stills into PDF documents

FAQ

What can the GifGrep skill do in OpenClaw?

GifGrep lets your OpenClaw agent search Tenor and Giphy for GIFs, browse results in a TUI, download GIFs, extract still frames from animations, and generate contact sheets (grid thumbnails) for quick visual review.

Does GifGrep require API keys?

Tenor works out of the box with a demo key. For Giphy, set the GIPHY_API_KEY environment variable. You can also set TENOR_API_KEY for higher rate limits on Tenor.

Can GifGrep extract frames from GIFs?

Yes. Use the still command to extract a single frame at a specific timestamp, or the sheet command to generate a grid of sampled frames as a single PNG -- great for documentation, PRs, and quick reviews. Read more in our OpenClaw for teams guide.

Is the GifGrep skill safe to use?

The GifGrep skill has been security-vetted by KiwiClaw. It only accesses public GIF APIs (Tenor/Giphy) and saves files locally. No user data is transmitted beyond search queries.