SakanaAI / AutoIllustrate

Autoillustrate 
 Generate publication-grade academic figures from a methodology brief. 
AutoIllustrate is a command-line tool that turns a methodology brief (a
paper section, a system description, or a verbal sketch) into a
publication-grade academic figure. It works in two steps:
1. It generates an editable, vectorised diagram as a `.drawio` file
 (essentially an XML file).
2. It then uses an image-generation model (`gpt-image-2.5-sunburst` by
 default) to produce a more visually appealing `.png`.
The deliverable is a real `.drawio` file you can keep editing in draw.io —
the generative model only touches the final restyle pass.
AutoIllustrate was used to generate the diagrams of
The Agentic Scientist.
 Editable full_figure.drawio , exported as full_figure.png 
 Enhanced full_figure_enhanced.png 
 Figure generated from the methods section of
 The AI Scientist 
paper (see the Quickstart ). 
## Install
 [code] 
Run `autoillustrate doctor` to check that the prerequisites below are
installed correctly.
> **Security note** — AutoIllustrate launches coding agents that can run
> arbitrary commands and inherit your environment, including your API keys.
> The source document you pass in steers those agents, so treat it like
> code: only run it on papers and files you trust, and preferably inside a
> container or VM rather than directly on your workstation. Run logs under
> ` /logs/` can echo document contents, so review them before
> sharing a run directory.
### Prerequisites
- **draw.io desktop CLI** on `PATH` as `drawio` (bundled with the
 draw.io desktop app).
- **Node ≥ 22**.
- **Python ≥ 3.10** — no manual setup is needed: on first run the CLI makes
 its own cached venv under `~/.cache/autoillustrate/`. Set
 `VENV_PY=/path/to/python` to use your own environment instead.
- **Headless CLI** (`@roberttlange/headless`) — all agent calls go through
 it. It is installed with AutoIllustrate. The default agent is Claude Code,
 so `claude` must also be on `PATH` unless you select a different `--agent`.
- **`OPENAI_API_KEY`** — required by default: the Phase 3 / Phase 6 vision
 audits use `gpt-6-astra`, and the Phase 5 restyle uses
 `gpt-image-2.5-sunburst` unless a different `--enhance-model` is selected.
- **`GEMINI_API_KEY`** — only if you select a Gemini backend:
 `--enhance-model nanobanana|nanobanana-pro`, or the
 `--audit-vlm gemini-3.1-pro` audit fallback.
Either export the keys in your shell or place them in a `.env` file in the
directory you run `autoillustrate` from. Headless Linux boxes, Chrome for
the export fallback, and other coding agents are covered in
docs/install.md.
## Quickstart
Point it at a paper (or a method section) and say what the figure should
depict. The example below uses
`examples/ai_scientist_method.tex`, the
methods section of the AI Scientist paper
(*Towards end-to-end automation of AI research*),
extracted from its arXiv source:
 [code] 
> **Note** — the prompt pins the layout to one panel. Leave that out and the
> tool decid