01
Before you begin
Get your Arcads API key
Create an account at arcads.ai, then copy your API key from app.arcads.ai/settings/api. You'll paste it once in step 3.
Free skill · Claude CodeArcadsMITUGC ads
Turn a product photo into UGC ads with Claude.
You drop a product photo into Claude and just talk to it. It uses Arcads to generate scroll-stopping UGC ads — a real-looking person holding your product, talking to camera — spins up variations to test, and pushes them straight to your Meta ads account. No shoot, no actor, no editor.
Claude, make an image of a girl watching the World Cup final.
Here's the shot.→ image generated
Now put my drink in her hand.
Product placed — everything else stays the same.→ product composited
Turn it into a UGC ad.
Generating a talking UGC video through Arcads…→ Seedance UGC video
Make 3 variations so I can test them.
Three angles, ready to go.→ 3 variants
Upload them all to my Meta ads account.
Pushed as paused ads — review and hit launch.→ published to Meta
What you're installing
A free skill that drives a paid engine.
It's an open-source Claude Code skill pack (works in Cursor too) that talks to the Arcads API. You describe the ad in plain English; it picks the right model — Seedance for talking UGC video, Nano Banana for stills, ChatGPT Image 2 for typography-heavy static ads — runs the generation, organizes the files, and can publish finished creatives straight to Meta as paused ads.
iThe skill is free and MIT-licensed. Arcads is the paid engine behind it — you'll need an Arcads account and an API key, and generations use your Arcads credits. Meta publishing is optional and only needs your Meta token if you want it.
Set it up · under 10 minutes
Four steps, then you're generating.
If you already run Claude Code, this is a five-minute setup. Terminal for two steps, then it lives inside your editor.
02
Terminal
Clone the skill
git clone https://github.com/krusemediallc/arcads-claude-code.git
cd arcads-claude-code03
Terminal · ~5 min
Run setup
./scripts/setup.shIt checks your account, asks for the API key, and saves it to .env (gitignored — you never paste it into chat). Then it verifies the connection and writes your personal MASTER_CONTEXT.md. Publishing to Meta? Add META_ACCESS_TOKEN and META_AD_ACCOUNT_ID to .env — optional.
04
Editor
Open it and go
Open the folder in Claude Code (or Cursor). A startup banner confirms the skills are installed, your .env is set, and MASTER_CONTEXT.md is present — if anything's missing, re-run the setup script.
Drop reference images into the references/ folders (influencers, products, aesthetics) and the agent picks them up automatically. Now just tell it what to make.
First prompts to try
Five prompts to get a first ad out.
Once it's open, just talk to it. Swap the brackets for your product and go — start with the first one for the fastest win.
01
Seedance video · start here
A UGC product review
“Make a 12-second UGC selfie video — a woman on her couch holding [product], telling the camera why she stopped buying [competitor].”
The fastest first video. It handles the iPhone-shot look, the natural delivery, and the little eye-contact breaks on its own.
02
Nano Banana · image
Build a reusable AI influencer
“Create a new AI influencer — a 24-year-old with freckles, shot in golden-hour kitchen light. Give me a full character sheet.”
You get a hero portrait plus a set of matching angles, saved to references/influencers/ so the same face carries across every future ad.
03
Seedance video · no talent
A premium product reveal
“Premium reveal of [product] on a dark set — slow hero rotation with text callouts, no person on screen.”
No actor needed. Clean dark-void look with text overlays carrying the pitch — works for any category.
04
ChatGPT Image 2 · static ad
A static Meta image ad
“Make me an Apple Notes–style static ad for [product].”
It pulls from a big library of proven static-ad formats — swap “Apple Notes” for a fake Google search, an iMessage screenshot, a Forbes editorial, a comparison table, and more.
05
Any model · reverse-engineer
Clone an ad that already works
“Here's an ad that's crushing [drop the video] — clone its structure for [product] and generate it.”
It breaks down the reference — hook, beats, pacing — remaps it to your product, and rebuilds it. The fastest way to systematize creatives that are already winning.
The fine print
This is the skill I promised in my Arcads collab. It's built and maintained by the team at Kruse Media (arcads-claude-code), open-source under MIT. Made one you're proud of? Tag me on Instagram — I repost the good ones. Stuck on setup? Ask in the weekly call on Skool.
Keep going
I find the AI tools so you don't have to.
One email a week: the skills, the ad workflows, and the small edges like this one — the prompts and the exact steps, while they still work.