create-apple-notes-mockup

Generate Apple Notes screens that look like real iPhone screenshots — correct status bar, floating toolbar pill, bold title, body text with paragraph spacing, yellow text cursor, autocorrect underline, optional embedded images and checklists, and an optional iOS keyboard.

Purpose

Turn a JSON note spec into a pixel-accurate Apple Notes (iPhone, light mode) screenshot — HTML + PNG at the native 1180×2556 (DPR 2). It is the deterministic, no-LLM renderer that the create-apple-notes-video-ad molecule drives frame-by-frame to fake a typing animation, and a standalone tool for one-off "noted to self" beats in ads, social posts, and storyboards. The orchestrating agent owns the copy; this atom owns the fidelity (status bar, smart punctuation, cursor, autocorrect underline, toolbar, keyboard chrome).

When to use

• Need a fake Apple Notes screenshot for an ad, social post, video scene, or product mockup.
• Need a sequence of Apple Notes frames (title-only → adding paragraphs → cursor moves) to drive a typing-animation video — used by create-apple-notes-video-ad.
• Need a static "noted to self" beat in a storyboard.

If you're rendering an iMessage thread, use skills/atoms/messaging/create-imessage-mockup instead.

Inputs

The skill is deterministic — it does not embed an LLM. The orchestrating agent composes a note JSON matching the schema below, then invokes the renderer.

Note JSON schema

{
  "title": "Hello",
  "body": [
    { "type": "paragraph", "text": "This is a screen recording of me typing on apple notes app." },
    { "type": "paragraph", "text": "Let's see how this feels." }
  ],
  "cursor": "end",
  "autocorrect_underline": ["this", "how"],
  "status_bar": {
    "time": "9:41",
    "battery_pct": 87,
    "battery_low": false,
    "show_focus_glyph": false
  },
  "show_keyboard": false,
  "keyboard_state": {
    "suggestions": ["see", "go", "do"],
    "shift": "lower",
    "letters_row1": "qwertyuiop",
    "letters_row2": "asdfghjkl",
    "letters_row3": "zxcvbnm"
  },
  "with_iphone_frame": false
}

• title — string. Bold display headline, single line.
• body[] — block list. Supported block types:
  • paragraph — { "text": "..." }. Smart punctuation is auto-applied (' → ', " → ", ... → …, -- → –, --- → —).
  • image — { "src": "<path|url>", "caption": "optional" }. Relative paths are resolved against the spec file's directory and inlined as data URIs.
  • checklist — { "items": [{ "text": "...", "checked": true|false }] }. Checked items get yellow filled circles with strikethrough; unchecked get gray-outlined circles.
  • divider — horizontal rule.
• cursor — "title" | "end" | null. "title" places the yellow caret at the end of the title; "end" places it at the end of the last paragraph; null hides it.
• autocorrect_underline[] — exact-case word list. Each occurrence gets the Apple Notes mid-typing yellow underline (<span class="spell">).
• status_bar — time, battery_pct (0–100), battery_low (color battery red), show_focus_glyph (DND/car icon next to time). The Dynamic Island is not rendered.
• show_keyboard — true overlays the iOS QWERTY + formatting toolbar.
• keyboard_state — only consulted when show_keyboard is true. shift = "lower" | "upper".
• with_iphone_frame — adds a thin dark bezel inset (for hero compositions).

CLI

node render.js --note examples/mid.json
node render.js --note examples/long.json --output ./my-exports/ --name todays-note
node render.js --note my-note.json --with-keyboard
node render.js --note my-note.json --viewport 1080x1920   # 9:16 ad delivery size

Flags

Flag	Effect
--note <path>	(required) JSON file matching the schema above
--with-keyboard	force-enables show_keyboard (overrides spec)
--with-iphone-frame	force-enables hardware bezel
--no-frame	force-disables hardware bezel
--output <dir>	parent dir for the dated output folder; default ./apple-notes-mockup-exports/
--name <slug>	override the output folder slug
--out-html <path> / --out-png <path>	write directly to explicit paths (skip dated folder)
--viewport WxH	override the render viewport (default 1180x2556)
--dpr N	device-pixel ratio (default 2)

Output

<output>/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<slug>/
  index.html       # full standalone HTML (images inlined as data URIs)
  screenshot.png   # rendered PNG at the chosen viewport × DPR
  spec.json        # copy of the input for reproducibility

Default <output> is ./apple-notes-mockup-exports/ in the cwd.

Workflow

1. Receive a prompt or existing note JSON.
2. If only a prompt was given: compose a note.json matching the schema, save it.
3. Run node render.js --note <path> [--with-keyboard].
4. Open the resulting PNG to verify the layout. If something looks wrong (wrong wrap, wrong cursor position, wrong battery color), edit the JSON and re-render.

Setup (one-time)

cd create-apple-notes-mockup
npm install
npx playwright install chromium

A symlink to create-imessage-mockup/node_modules ships with the repo, so on a fresh clone npm install is only needed if you want this skill to be self-contained.

Files

File	Purpose
render.js	CLI entry — parses flags, resolves image paths, generates HTML, takes screenshot
generate.js	Note JSON → standalone HTML page (smart-punctuation + autocorrect underline applied here)
screenshot.js	HTML → PNG via Playwright (chromium headless) at 1180×2556, DPR 2
templates/note.css	All visual styling (status bar, toolbar, body, checklist, image, keyboard)
templates/icons.js	Inline SVG icons (back chevron, undo, share, more, done check, signal, wifi, battery, format toolbar icons, keyboard glyphs)
assets/samples/sample-landscape.jpg	Sample image used by examples/with-image.json
examples/*.json	6 reference notes covering every variation (title-only, mid-typing, long multi-paragraph, with checklist, with image, frame-1 lowercase-keyboard)
tests/run-all.sh	Render every example into tests/output/ for visual review
apple-notes-skill-build.html	Side-by-side review board comparing reference video frames to generated PNGs

Quality Checks

Before declaring a note shippable:

• Title renders as bold display headline, not regular weight.
• Body text uses Apple's smart punctuation — ' is curly, " is curly, … is a single character.
• Yellow cursor (#FFCC00) sits flush at the end of the target text, ~5px wide.
• Body paragraphs are separated by one empty visual line (no manual <br>).
• Autocorrect underlines are short yellow lines flush under the flagged token, with case-sensitive matching.
• Status bar: time left, signal/wifi/battery right. Battery is red iff battery_low: true. No Dynamic Island.
• Scroll mask: status bar and toolbar have opaque white backgrounds so body content scrolled by the molecule's driver doesn't bleed through. Verify by translating .note by -300px in DevTools and confirming the title is fully masked by the toolbar — not visible behind/through it.
• Toolbar: floating back-chevron pill (left), white capsule with undo/share/more, yellow Done circle (right). All cast soft shadows.
• Keyboard (when enabled): QWERTY layout matches shift casing, suggestion strip shows 3 words, formatting toolbar pill above keys, mic + globe at bottom.
• Image blocks render with rounded corners (~18px) and respect the body left padding.
• Checklist: filled yellow circles + strikethrough on checked items; gray outline circles otherwise.

Failure Modes

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Body text wraps a word too early or too late	Font width differs from reference (Chromium picked up a non-SF fallback)	Adjust font-size on .note-body in steps of 2px, or widen .note by reducing left/right padding
Title looks thin / not bold enough	Host doesn't have SF Pro Display; system falls back to a lighter face	Set font-weight: 900 (already the default) and check `fc-list
"Hello's", "Let's" render with straight quote	Smart-punctuation pre-processor disabled	Verify smartQuotes() is called in generate.js before escapeHtml
Image doesn't render (blank space)	Remote URL blocked or relative path didn't resolve	Use a local file path; render.js inlines local images as base64
Autocorrect underline also matches "This" when only "this" was intended	Regex was case-insensitive	The regex is case-sensitive by default. Pass exact-case strings in autocorrect_underline
Empty paragraph collapses (no cursor space)	<p class="note-paragraph"></p> with no content has zero height	The CSS sets margin: 0 0 84px 0 so an empty paragraph still occupies one paragraph gap; ensure you didn't strip the trailing margin
Yellow Done circle looks orange	CSS color drift	Pure Apple yellow is #FFCC00. Cursor + Done share the value; do not change to #FFC107 (Material amber)
Keyboard suggestion Hello's renders with straight apostrophe	Smart quotes not applied to suggestions	Confirmed applied via smartQuotes(s) in generate.js

Reference

The visual spec was extracted from apple-notes-typing.MP4 (a 36-second iPhone screen recording of typing into Apple Notes in light mode). See apple-notes-skill-build.html in this folder for the side-by-side proof — each example is shown alongside the reference frame it targets.