Installation

There are three ways to use AI Playground outside the web app — the gen-ai CLI, ready-to-use Skills for AI agents, and the MCP integration. They all build on the same account: install the CLI, run gen-ai login once, and everything else builds on it.

gen-ai CLI

Install script — macOS / Linux

curl -fsSL https://picsart.com/gen-ai-cli/install.sh | bash

This installs the gen-ai binary to ~/.local/bin (override with GEN_AI_INSTALL_DIR), verifies SHA-256 checksums, and adds the install dir to your PATH via your shell rc (.bashrc / .zshrc / .profile / fish). Supports macOS and Linux on x64 and arm64.

Install script — Windows PowerShell

iwr https://picsart.com/gen-ai-cli/install.ps1 | iex

npm (any platform)

npm install -g @picsart/gen-ai

Verify

gen-ai --version

Then authenticate once with gen-ai login — see Authentication.

Official page: picsart.com/gen-ai-cli

Skills — for AI agents

Picsart ships ready-to-use Skills: small .zip bundles of prompts and instructions that drop straight into Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, or ChatGPT. Download a skill, hand it to the agent, and it already knows which model to pick, how to structure the prompt, and which gen-ai command to run. The flagship skill, gen-ai-use, gives an agent access to all 176 models across image, video, and audio.

Skills drive the gen-ai CLI under the hood, so install the CLI and run gen-ai login first. Full walkthrough in the Skills guide.

Official page: picsart.com/gen-ai-skills

MCP & agent integrations

The gen-ai integration is built on the Model Context Protocol, so it works natively with Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, ChatGPT, or any MCP-compatible agent — connecting to 176 models (Flux, Sora, Kling, Veo, ElevenLabs, and more).

• Claude Code / Cursor / Windsurf — add the gen-ai-use Skill; it plugs the CLI into the agent.

• Codex (OpenAI) — install the CLI, then add the plugin:

  codex://plugins/picsart@openai-curated

• Any MCP client — see the official MCP page for the current connection method and the available tools.

Authentication is always gen-ai login (one browser confirmation per machine).

Official page: picsart.com/gen-ai-mcp — the canonical, always-current connection details live here. The MCP Quickstart documents the agent-facing tools (picsart_generate, picsart_pricing, …) and example calls.