A Creative Director for Claude Code That Hates Surprise Bills

What it does

Banana Claude is a Claude Code skill that turns a plain-language creative brief into a structured Gemini image workflow. Before any paid API call, it surfaces the exact prompt, model route, output path, and cost estimate for your approval. It supports generation, editing, iteration, comparison across models, and local typesetting, while keeping keys out of shell history and metadata.

The interesting bit

Most generative art tools charge first and show receipts later; Banana Claude forces a review step that treats every request like an unapproved invoice. The security posture is unusually strict: one short-lived approval grants exactly one provider attempt, and any plan change voids the previous okay.

Key highlights

• Pre-flight planning reveals the prompt, model, destination, and nominal estimate before any chargeable request
• Comparison mode tests up to three prompts across three Gemini model routes in a single bounded portfolio
• Privacy-conscious metadata sidecars and cost records that omit raw prompts by default
• Built-in scan and migration tools to clean up legacy installs that may have leaked raw API keys
• Explicitly refuses to treat generated output as automatically correct or production-ready

Caveats

• Requires Claude Code 2.1.199+, Python 3.11+, and a billing-enabled Google AI project
• Older installs may have left raw keys in Claude settings or unpinned third-party MCP entries; the README insists on a guided upgrade rather than a simple overwrite
• Gemini output remains probabilistic, so consistency, spelling, and rights clearance are still human review problems, not solved guarantees

Verdict

Useful if you want disciplined, reviewable image generation inside Claude Code without leaking prompts or burning credits. Overkill if you just need a casual fire-and-forget image generator.