Agent Cover Image Generation: 7 Providers and Plan Mode

Two ways to get a cover: let the CLI generate and upload it (a WeChat side effect), or use plan mode and let the host agent's image tool render the plan. Full reference.

The 7 providers

Preset families

Twelve cover-* presets (16:9 default; 21:9 for cover-claude-warm and cover-semantic-concept; 2.35:1 for cover-suspense-black-gold) and thirteen infographic-* presets. Discover them:

md2wechat prompts list --kind image --archetype cover

Plan mode: no key, no upload

md2wechat generate_cover --preset cover-default --article article.md --plan --json

Returns IMAGE_PLAN_READY with prompt, aspect, suggested_filename, and alt_text. No provider, no IMAGE_API_KEY, no upload — the host agent renders the plan with its own image tool and feeds the file back via --cover <path> at draft time (Cover Image).

Direct generation is a side effect

Direct generation runs generate → download → upload to WeChat materials, so it needs WeChat credentials plus IMAGE_API_KEY. Inline placeholders do the same during --upload/--draft:

![A warm hero illustration](__generate:A warm hero illustration in flat style__)