A character drawn by an image model and rigged by Iki, head turned slightly and smiling.

The open Live2D alternative that AI can build.

Iki is a free, MIT-licensed 2D puppet engine for the web. Ask its Claude Code or Codex plugin for a character: an image model draws the parts, and the auto-rigger makes them blink, talk, turn and nod. The model is plain JSON — an open .iki file you own, played in WebGL.

Make a character Open the playground

These seventeen values produced the frame above. That is the whole rig — a host drives the same ids from lip-sync, gaze, blink timers, and expressions.

ParamAngleX−10.00

ParamAngleY4.00

ParamAngleZ−3.00

ParamBreath0.00

ParamMouthOpenY0.00

ParamMouthForm0.00

ParamEyeLOpen1.00

ParamEyeROpen1.00

ParamEyeBallX0.00

ParamEyeBallY0.00

ParamBrowLY0.00

ParamBrowRY0.00

ParamBrowLAngle0.00

ParamBrowRAngle0.00

ParamCheek0.00

ParamHairSwayX0.00

ParamHairSwayZ0.00

Ask for a character

Install the plugin in Claude Code or Codex, then ask in plain words. It needs an image generator — see the prerequisites.

/plugin marketplace add zeikar/iki
/plugin install iki@iki

# or, in Codex
codex plugin marketplace add zeikar/iki
codex plugin add iki@iki

> make me an iki character: short copper bob, green eyes, school uniform

Draw: An image model draws each part on its own — face, eyes, irises, brows, mouth, nose, front and back hair, torso.
Compose and check: compose_layers_from_parts lays the parts out on one canvas, and measure_layers flags the geometry that would break in motion.
Rig: auto_rig_from_layers wires eyelid-fold blink, gaze, lip-sync, head turn, nod and tilt, brows, breathing and hair physics into a .iki model. The character at the top of this page was made this way.

What runs today

Iki is early, but none of this is a mockup — each of these works today.

AI generator: Rigs a character from role-named PNG layers — blink, gaze, mouth, head turn, brows and hair physics, wired automatically. It runs as an MCP server and a Claude Code / Codex plugin, so an AI agent can go from a prompt to a rigged model without a human in the loop.
Runtime: Renders parameter-driven color quads, atlas-sampled texture parts, warp-mesh and grid deformation, stencil clipping masks, and spring and chain physics. WebGL2, no native toolchain.
Editor: Authors parts, deformers, and physics rigs in the browser, with undo and redo on every edit. Imports layered PSDs.
Format: One documented schema with a fail-fast validator that reports the exact path that failed. A model is a .iki JSON file you can open, read, and edit by hand.

Packages

Published to npm under @ikijs, with the Claude Code plugin beside them in the repository. The engine depends only on the format package, and never on a host.

Package	What it is
@ikijs/format	The .iki model schema, types, loader, and validator
@ikijs/engine	WebGL2 runtime that plays a model
@ikijs/editor	Headless editing core — documents, commands, undo/redo, and the auto-rigger
@ikijs/mcp	MCP server that exposes reading, validating, and rigging to agents
plugin/	Claude Code / Codex plugin — the character-generation skills, their agents, and the MCP server, in one install

Live2D Cubism is the industry standard and is far more mature than Iki in every dimension that matters to an artist. If you need production-grade 2D rigging today, use Cubism. Iki exists for people who want characters an AI agent can build, in a free and open web format they can script against — read the full comparison.