Your users type what they need, such as “a launch post for our spring blend”, and get back a finished design in their brand that they can keep editing.
CoDesign is an SDK that gives your product’s AI agent the tools to design with CE.SDK, IMG.LY’s design engine, on designs your product stores. You do not need to know CE.SDK to use it.
What CoDesign Gives You#
- An agent that designs. Your product’s agent starts from a template, a file, or a blank page, sets text, images, and brand colors, looks at what it made and fixes it, and hands your users finished files: PNG, PDF, print-ready PDF/X (the PDF standard for handing files to a printer), and more.
- Design know-how built in. A handbook of layout and typography rules ships with the SDK, and the model reads it as it works, so results look designed without prompts of your own.
- Your brand, your content. The agent uses your fonts, colors, templates, and photo library, through the same CE.SDK plugins (small JavaScript files that add your catalogs to the engine) your editor applies.
- Designs people can keep editing. What the agent makes is a CE.SDK design: it opens in CE.SDK’s editor in your product, where a person can finish it by hand ( Your Editor).
- Your product stays yours. Designs live in your storage, users sign in with your sign-in, and you choose the agent framework (the library that runs your agent loop) and the model, which can be IMG.LY’s AI gateway, with no model account of your own, or any provider whose models call tools.
- Runs on your infrastructure. The design engine runs as IMG.LY’s Docker image in your containers. Exports and AI use are charged to your IMG.LY account ( What It Costs).
How It Fits Together#
- The SDK,
@imgly/codesign-sdkon npm. Your agent runner, the code that runs your agent loop, callsprepareCoDesignand hands the design tools it returns to the model. A tool is a function the model may ask to call; the loop runs each call and sends back the result until the model is done.prepareCoDesignreturns an object, calledcodesignon these pages, that holds the tools and the methods below. - The executor. It holds the CE.SDK engine and runs the JavaScript the
model writes to change a design, apart from your keys and your design store
( Security). It is IMG.LY’s Docker image
imgly/codesign-executor, which you run unchanged on your infrastructure, one container per conversation (your id for one chat or job). It charges every export to your IMG.LY account ( Billing). Docker on your machine is enough to try it ( Quickstart). - The model. Your agent runner calls it. The default is IMG.LY’s AI
gateway at
https://gateway.img.ly/v1, paid with your CoDesign license key; any provider whose models call tools works too.
One setup serves a chat in your product, long jobs, batches overnight, an API, and a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, which lets other AI assistants call the tools.
Keep the SDK, the executor, and every CE.SDK that saves the agent’s designs, your editor included, on the same version ( Versions and Upgrades).
What Stays Yours#
Your sign-in, tenants, database, file storage, and web app stay as they are.
Designs are stored only in your storage, never at IMG.LY; the executor holds a
design only while the agent works on it. You pass prepareCoDesign a few
small things over what you already have, such as a read and a write over your
design table ( API Reference).
What the Tools Do for You#
The model never touches the design directly. It calls the tools in
codesign.tools, and your agent runner runs each call. With them, the agent
reads IMG.LY’s design handbook, edits a design with code it writes, looks at
renders of its work, and searches your asset sources. A designs store lets
it start and list designs, uploadExport lets it hand people files, and
gateway lets it generate images, video, and audio. For the full list, what a
tool result contains, and how to add tools of your own, see
Tools.
End your system prompt with codesign.instructions, a few sentences from the
SDK on how to use the tools, so your own prompt names no tool, and send every
part of a tool result back to the model, images included: the renders are how
the model sees its work.
Your own code can also call the design methods directly: load a Photoshop (PSD), InDesign (IDML), PowerPoint, or PDF file into a design, run your own code against it, and export it, charged like the model’s exports. For every method, see the API Reference.
Status#
The current release is @imgly/codesign-sdk@1.83.0 on npm and
imgly/codesign-executor:1.83.0 on Docker Hub.
| What | Status |
|---|---|
| The executor image, exporting images, PDF, and HTML | Supported on any Docker host, and on any container platform that meets the constraints in Host the Executor: one container per conversation, a clean disk at each start, outbound access closed except the hosts the executor needs. |
| CE.SDK editors on iOS or Android saving the agent’s designs | Not supported yet: open the designs read-only there. |
| The starter kits (Agentic Design Manager, Agentic Resize) | Supported. Their pages are tested in desktop Chrome. |
| Video and audio export | Not supported yet. Generating video and audio with gateway works. |
The asset types for typefaces and colors (ASSET_MIME_TYPES.typeface, ASSET_MIME_TYPES.color) |
Provisional: their values and the shape of their assets may change in a release. |
Next Steps#
- Quickstart — run a design agent on your machine and get a PNG and an editable design back.
- Architecture — see what runs where, what you need before you start, and what is charged.
- Starter Kits — start your product from a complete app.
- Host the Executor — run the executor in production.
- Serve the Design Tools as an MCP Server — let your customers’ own AI assistants call the tools.