by Indicode BV
klad review, pricing and verdict
Source-available painting and animation app with 23 brushes that a coding agent drives through a command line, with no image model inside.
- Best for
- Indie game artist
- Not for
- Windows-only designer
Should you use klad?
Pick klad if you make game art or illustrations with Claude Code or Codex and want to edit what the agent paints stroke by stroke. It has 118 GitHub stars and no installers yet, so you build it from source, and drawing on Windows is untested.
Every stroke an agent paints stays editable data a person can change, with no image model and no rerolling.
A stroke-level data model that agents can read and edit is hard to copy quickly, but an app about a week old with no installers has little lock-in and a source-available licence limits reach.
Also for
- Illustrator working with a coding agent
- Indie game artists making props, characters and sprite animation
Show 2 more
- Illustrators who work with a coding agent and still paint by hand
- Developers who script or batch art through a command line
Also not for
- Team that needs an open-source licence
Main trade-off
No installers yet, Mac-first, and untested for drawing on Windows.
klad pricing
| Plan | Monthly price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free (build from source) | Free | The full app: 23 brushes, layers, masks, timeline and bones, The klad command line and the agent skills, For personal use and for companies under 500,000 euros in revenue, You build it yourself with Rust |
| Installer build (announced) | Custom | Signed installers for Windows, macOS and Linux, Updates that install themselves, One-click setup for Claude and Codex desktop, A one-time price with all 1.x updates included |
| Company seat | Custom | For larger companies, counted by last year's revenue, One seat for each person who uses klad |
Free to build from source. Installer builds are announced at $19 once at launch and $15 for people on the email list. A company above the revenue limit buys a seat at $49 per person.
Before you commit
- Companies with 500,000 euros or more in revenue need a $49 seat per person, which the free-from-source headline does not show
What klad does
klad is a source-available painting and animation app from Indicode BV, operated by a coding agent through its own command-line tool, with 23 brushes, layers, a timeline and Godot export. It contains no image model: each stroke the agent paints stays editable data, so a person can change any one of them.
An agent paints through a command line
Every editor action has a klad command, so Claude Code, Codex or any agent that runs terminal commands works on the drawing you have open.
Strokes stay editable
Each stroke keeps its path, pressure, brush and colour, so any one can be recoloured, bent or moved hours later.
Real paint, not only vectors
Two dozen brushes such as loaded oil, with smudges that stay strokes, plus shapes, gradients and text in about fifty open fonts.
A live shared drawing
The agent's strokes show in your editor about a second later, and notes pinned on the canvas are read by the agent.
Show all 7 features
Animation tools
A timeline with onion skins, in-betweens made from key drawings, and bones with inverse kinematics, which the README calls a preview.
Game-ready export
Clips export as PNGs, sprite sheets or a Godot SpriteFrames scene with each clip's timing.
Plain files and an open format
A drawing is a folder with no account needed, and its file format, command reference and agent skills are MIT-licensed.
Works with
- Godot
- Claude Code
- Codex
Missing integrations
- SVG import and export
Most users expect these and they are not currently supported.
Capabilities
- Agent driven drawing
- Painting
- Animation
- Command line
- Game art
Strengths and limits
Strengths
- Fixes are local: in the README an agent painted a sprout creature with 4,344 strokes and fills, and each can be changed afterwards, so nothing is rerolled.
- Free to build from source, with a one-time $19 build announced and no subscription or account, per its pricing page.
- Any program can read and write klad drawings, because the drawing format is documented to the byte under the MIT licence.
Limits
- There are no installers yet: the pricing page says you get klad by building it from source, about ten minutes the first time, which means installing Rust first.
- It is early and Mac-first: the README says nobody has drawn with it on Windows, Linux tablets give no pressure, and SVG import and export, snapping and a grid are missing.
- It is source-available, not open source: larger companies need a seat for each person who uses it, and the app and its builds may not be redistributed.
- The changelog says drawings from before the klad/6 format do not open and are not converted, so early drawings can be stranded.
klad alternatives
| Tool | Price from | Free plan | Runs on | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| klad This page | -- | Yes | Mac | 3.2 |
 MidjourneyPick klad if you want to edit every stroke an agent paints; pick Midjourney if you want a finished picture from a prompt and will not edit it stroke by stroke. | $10/mo | No | Web · iOS · Android | 4.7 |
 Adobe FireflyPick klad for agent-driven painting and sprite animation you can edit as data; pick Adobe Firefly for generated images inside Adobe's own tools. | $9.99/mo | Yes | Web · iOS · Android · Mac · Windows | -- |
 DreambeansGoogle Labs app turning Gmail, Calendar, Photos and YouTube data into illustrated daily stories, for Google AI Ultra subscribers since June 2026. | Free | Yes | iOS · Android | 3.8 |
klad facts
- Training-data policy
- Drawings are plain files on your own computer. klad checks once a day for a newer version, which can be turned off, and Help > Report a problem shows the report before it is copied.
- Works offline
- Yes
- Minimum skill level
- Advanced
- Price band
- Free
Data and privacy
Source-available (PolyForm Internal Use License 1.0.0 with extra permissions)
Questions about klad
How much does klad cost?
klad is free to build from source for your own use, and for a company that made under 500,000 euros last year. Installer builds for Windows, macOS and Linux are announced at $19 once at launch, or $15 on the email list, with all 1.x updates included and no subscription. A larger company buys a seat for $49 per person.
Is klad open source, and can I use it for free?
klad is source-available, not open source: the app is under the PolyForm Internal Use License 1.0.0 with extra permissions, copyright Indicode BV. You may build it and use it for yourself or inside a company under the revenue limit, but you may not distribute the app or a build. The file format, command reference, agent skills and the klad-client crate are MIT-licensed.
Which agents can paint in klad?
Any agent that can run terminal commands, and the README names Claude Code and Codex. The agent runs klad skill and klad skill drawing to learn how to look at a drawing, change it and check the result, then paints with commands such as stroke, fill and set. Its strokes appear in your editor about a second later.
Does klad generate images with AI?
No. klad has no image model inside; the agent you connect decides what to paint and klad supplies brushes, layers and a timeline. Each stroke is stored with its path, pressure, brush and colour, so you fix one leaf instead of rerolling the whole picture.
What platforms does klad run on?
The editor is made on macOS, with pen pressure and tilt. It builds and passes its tests on Linux and Windows, but the README says tablets give no pressure on Linux and nobody has drawn with it on Windows yet. Installers are described as coming next, so today you build it from source with Rust.
About klad
klad is a 2D painting and animation app from Indicode BV that you share with a coding agent, first released as version 0.1.0 on 4 November 2026. There is no image model inside it. The agent you connect, such as Claude Code or OpenAI Codex, decides what to paint and does it through the klad command line with the same brushes you use by hand, while you watch the strokes land in the editor. The README's sample drawings were painted that way with Claude Fable 5.2.
Read the full background
Every stroke is stored as data: its path, pressure, brush and colour. That is the difference from an image generator, where the only edit left is another roll of the dice. If one leaf of a creature looks off, you or the agent pick that stroke and recolour, bend, move or delete it. A drawing is a folder of plain files on your computer, needs no account, and works in git. Run klad skill and the agent gets its instructions for inspecting a drawing, editing it and checking its own work.
It suits indie game artists who want props, characters and walk cycles, illustrators who work with an agent and still want a pen in hand, and developers who script art. On the animation side it adds a timeline and a rigging tool, and clips go out as sprite sheets or straight into Godot.
klad is the wrong pick for anyone who wants a finished picture from one prompt, since it has no image model; Midjourney and Adobe Firefly are filed on Hokai as AI image generators. It is also not ready for Windows artists, not open source, and not for people who will not build software, because the installers are still to come. See emerging AI software for peers.
Sources and guides
Official sources
- klad official site Vendor
- klad pricing and builds Docs
- klad command reference (docs/cli.md) Docs
- GitHub repository GitHub
Product facts on this page (pricing, plans, integrations, compliance) are read from Indicode BV's own pages and documentation. The verdict is Hokai's reading of them, not the vendor's claim.
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