Pexels Media Agent Skill

Source royalty-free images and videos from Pexels API for design, placeholders, or content. Supports search, curated/popular content, collections, multiple resolutions, and ALWAYS creates detailed sidecar metadata files.

2.3k tokens

context cost

SKILL.md, read when the skill is used

files

instructions only

copies elsewhere

how many repositories repackaged it

275

stars on the repo

on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository

npx skills add https://github.com/nicepkg/ai-workflow --skill pexels-media

The instruction itself

32 sections, as written by the author

Pexels Media Sourcing

Source high-quality, royalty-free images and videos from Pexels for design work, placeholders, or content creation.

Prerequisites

This skill requires the PEXELS_API_KEY environment variable to be set.

# Check if API key is available
echo $PEXELS_API_KEY

If not set, obtain a free API key from Pexels API.

API Base URLs

Photos: https://api.pexels.com/v1/
Videos: https://api.pexels.com/videos/

Authentication

All requests require the Authorization header:

curl -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" "https://api.pexels.com/v1/search?query=nature"

Photo Endpoints

Search Photos

curl -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/v1/search?query=QUERY&orientation=ORIENTATION&size=SIZE&color=COLOR&locale=LOCALE&page=PAGE&per_page=PER_PAGE"

Parameters:

| Parameter | Required | Values |

|-----------|----------|--------|

| query | Yes | Search term |

| orientation | No | landscape, portrait, square |

| size | No | large (24MP), medium (12MP), small (4MP) |

| color | No | red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue, violet, pink, brown, black, gray, white, or hex code (e.g., #ffffff) |

| locale | No | en-US, pt-BR, es-ES, de-DE, fr-FR, ja-JP, zh-CN, ko-KR, etc. |

| page | No | Page number (default: 1) |

| per_page | No | Results per page (default: 15, max: 80) |

Curated Photos

Trending photos curated by the Pexels team (updated hourly):

curl -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/v1/curated?page=1&per_page=15"

Get Photo by ID

curl -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/v1/photos/PHOTO_ID"

Video Endpoints

Search Videos

curl -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/videos/search?query=QUERY&orientation=ORIENTATION&size=SIZE&min_width=MIN_WIDTH&min_height=MIN_HEIGHT&min_duration=MIN_DURATION&max_duration=MAX_DURATION&page=PAGE&per_page=PER_PAGE"

Additional Video Parameters:

| Parameter | Description |

|-----------|-------------|

| min_width | Minimum width in pixels |

| min_height | Minimum height in pixels |

| min_duration | Minimum duration in seconds |

| max_duration | Maximum duration in seconds |

Get Video by ID

curl -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/videos/videos/VIDEO_ID"

Collections

Featured Collections

curl -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/v1/collections/featured?page=1&per_page=15"

Collection Media

curl -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/v1/collections/COLLECTION_ID?type=TYPE&page=1&per_page=15"

Type parameter: photos, videos, or omit for both.

Photo Sizes Available

When downloading photos, these sizes are available in the API response:

| Key | Description |

|-----|-------------|

| original | Original size uploaded by photographer |

| large2x | Width 940px, height doubled |

| large | Width 940px |

| medium | Height 350px |

| small | Height 130px |

| portrait | Width 800px, height 1200px |

| landscape | Width 1200px, height 627px |

| tiny | Width 280px, height 200px |

Video Files Available

Videos include multiple quality files in the response:

| Quality | Typical Resolution |

|---------|-------------------|

| hd | 1280x720 |

| sd | 640x360 |

| hls | Adaptive streaming |

| Various | Full HD, 4K when available |

MANDATORY: Sidecar Metadata Files

CRITICAL REQUIREMENT: For EVERY downloaded file, you MUST create a sidecar metadata file.

Sidecar File Naming

For a downloaded file mountain-sunset.jpg, create mountain-sunset.jpg.meta.json.

Photo Sidecar Content

{
  "source": "pexels",
  "type": "photo",
  "id": 12345,
  "url": "https://www.pexels.com/photo/12345/",
  "download_url": "https://images.pexels.com/photos/12345/pexels-photo-12345.jpeg",
  "downloaded_size": "large",
  "width": 1920,
  "height": 1080,
  "photographer": "John Doe",
  "photographer_url": "https://www.pexels.com/@johndoe",
  "photographer_id": 67890,
  "avg_color": "#7E5835",
  "alt": "Brown mountain during sunset",
  "license": "Pexels License - Free for personal and commercial use",
  "attribution": "Photo by John Doe on Pexels",
  "attribution_html": "<a href=\"https://www.pexels.com/photo/12345/\">Photo</a> by <a href=\"https://www.pexels.com/@johndoe\">John Doe</a> on <a href=\"https://www.pexels.com\">Pexels</a>",
  "downloaded_at": "2025-12-02T14:30:00Z",
  "api_response": {
    // Full original API response for this photo
  }
}

Video Sidecar Content

{
  "source": "pexels",
  "type": "video",
  "id": 12345,
  "url": "https://www.pexels.com/video/12345/",
  "download_url": "https://videos.pexels.com/video-files/12345/...",
  "downloaded_quality": "hd",
  "width": 1920,
  "height": 1080,
  "duration": 30,
  "user": {
    "id": 67890,
    "name": "John Doe",
    "url": "https://www.pexels.com/@johndoe"
  },
  "video_files": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "quality": "hd",
      "file_type": "video/mp4",
      "width": 1920,
      "height": 1080,
      "link": "https://..."
    }
  ],
  "video_pictures": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "picture": "https://...",
      "nr": 0
    }
  ],
  "license": "Pexels License - Free for personal and commercial use",
  "attribution": "Video by John Doe on Pexels",
  "downloaded_at": "2025-12-02T14:30:00Z",
  "api_response": {
    // Full original API response for this video
  }
}

Download Workflow

1. Search and Select

# Search for photos
RESPONSE=$(curl -s -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/v1/search?query=office+workspace&orientation=landscape&per_page=5")

# Parse and display results
echo "$RESPONSE" | jq '.photos[] | {id, photographer, alt, url: .src.large}'

2. Download with Sidecar

# Get photo details
PHOTO_ID=12345
PHOTO_DATA=$(curl -s -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/v1/photos/$PHOTO_ID")

# Extract download URL (choose size)
DOWNLOAD_URL=$(echo "$PHOTO_DATA" | jq -r '.src.large')
FILENAME="pexels-$PHOTO_ID-large.jpg"

# Download the image
curl -L -o "$FILENAME" "$DOWNLOAD_URL"

# Create sidecar metadata (MANDATORY)
echo "$PHOTO_DATA" | jq '{
  source: "pexels",
  type: "photo",
  id: .id,
  url: .url,
  download_url: .src.large,
  downloaded_size: "large",
  width: .width,
  height: .height,
  photographer: .photographer,
  photographer_url: .photographer_url,
  photographer_id: .photographer_id,
  avg_color: .avg_color,
  alt: .alt,
  license: "Pexels License - Free for personal and commercial use",
  attribution: ("Photo by " + .photographer + " on Pexels"),
  downloaded_at: (now | todate),
  api_response: .
}' > "$FILENAME.meta.json"

Rate Limits

Default: 200 requests/hour, 20,000 requests/month
Check response headers for current limits:
X-Ratelimit-Limit
X-Ratelimit-Remaining
X-Ratelimit-Reset

Attribution Best Practices

While not legally required by the Pexels license, attribution is encouraged:

Minimal: "Photo by [Photographer] on Pexels"
With link: "Photo by Photographer on Pexels"
HTML: Use the attribution_html from the sidecar file

Example Use Cases

Placeholder Images for UI Design

# Get 5 abstract/minimal images for placeholders
curl -s -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/v1/search?query=minimal+abstract&orientation=square&size=small&per_page=5"

Hero Background Video

# Find short, wide landscape videos
curl -s -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/videos/search?query=nature+aerial&orientation=landscape&min_width=1920&min_duration=5&max_duration=15"

Product Photography Backgrounds

# Search for clean, neutral backgrounds
curl -s -H "Authorization: $PEXELS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.pexels.com/v1/search?query=white+background+texture&color=white&size=large"

Checklist

When using this skill:

[ ] Verify PEXELS_API_KEY is set
[ ] Choose appropriate endpoint (search, curated, popular, collection)
[ ] Apply relevant filters (orientation, size, color, duration)
[ ] Select appropriate resolution for use case
[ ] Download file to appropriate location
[ ] CREATE SIDECAR METADATA FILE (mandatory)
[ ] Consider attribution in final use

References

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How to use it

Copy the folder

Take nicepkg/pexels-media from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.