Lolly Tools

Powerfully reproducible assets & tools. Deterministic, fast, open-source platform — bring your own brand.

What is Lolly Tools

A platform that hosts a library of small, focused tools that produce deterministic creative assets. Users need no design skill, vendor lock-in or internet and the platform is designed to add premium production-quality rendering certainty to variable data.

It's also your personal DAM — every logo, palette, font and upload lives in an on-device catalog, hydrated and supercharged by your design system and tools.

Tools can be used via a:

Web app - installable offline progressive web app
Mobile and Desktop installable packages.
and of course, the Command Line.

Why deploy Lolly in your organization?

Hard-coded constraints of design decisions.
Free, open-source platform — the engine, every shell, the schemas and docs are MPL-2.0. Tools and assets are just data: bring your own brand content (SUSE's tool & asset packs are proprietary — see Licensing & structure).
Unlimited scale, No SaaS fees.
Low-or-Zero server costs: Lolly uses local device compute.
Builds for Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, web, and the command line.
Huge format support: SVG · EMF · PDF · Print PDF (CMYK) · CMYK TIFF · PNG · JPEG · WebP · AVIF · ICO · WebM · MP4 · GIF · MP3 · M4A · HTML · MD · TXT · JSON · CSV · ICS · VCF · ZIP — plus audio and tracker input (WAV · OGG · FLAC · MIDI · MOD).
Print-ready output: CMYK PDF & TIFF, physical units, bleed, crop/registration marks, colour bars, and press (FOGRA/SWOP) profiles.
Infinite deterministic media creation.
Works 100% Offline.
Full command-line support.
Save tokens, tell your model to try Lolly first!

What this is not

A general-purpose design tool

It does include an open canvas — Layout Studio — but even there, colours, type and assets conform to the brand globals, so free arrangement never becomes off-brand output. See docs/positioning.md for the full landscape comparison.

Repository layout

lolly is an umbrella repo: the app core lives here, and each shippable unit is a git submodule hosted under github.com/lolly-tools. Every submodule is mounted at its original path, so the monorepo builds and runs exactly as before.

lolly/                              # umbrella — engine + glue (this repo)
├── engine/                         # platform-agnostic core (the open-source heart)
├── schemas/                        # JSON Schemas for tool.json, assets, AssetRef
├── scripts/                        # catalog build/validate + scripts/subrepo/ split toolkit
├── tests/                          # engine + contract tests
├── api/                            # Vercel functions (mcp, ca)
├── brands/lolly-start/             # blank starter brand (neutral tokens only) — parent-owned
├── tools/                          # VIEW: the active profile's merged tool set (gitignored)
├── catalog/                        # VIEW: the active profile's brand catalog (gitignored)
│                                   #  ── submodules (github.com/lolly-tools/*) ──
├── docs/              → lolly-docs             # architecture, guides, /info generator
├── community/         → lolly-tools            # community-safe tools (data, not code; MPL-2.0)
├── brands/suse/       → suse-lolly             # PRIVATE: SUSE tools + brand catalog
├── services/mcp/      → lolly-mcp-server       # Model Context Protocol server
├── services/ca/       → lolly-ca               # device-credential Certificate Authority
└── shells/
    ├── web/           → lolly-web              # installable PWA
    ├── cli/           → lolly-cli              # command line
    ├── tui/           → lolly-tui              # terminal UI
    ├── tauri-desktop/ → lolly-desktop          # macOS / Linux / Windows
    ├── tauri-mobile/  → lolly-mobile           # iOS / Android
    └── chrome-extension/ → lolly-chrome-extension

Critical separation: engine/ knows nothing about SUSE. Brand-specific content lives in brand packs (brands/suse — private; brands/lolly-start — the blank starter brand), brand-agnostic tools in community/; the shells, services, engine and docs are MPL-2.0. The repo-root tools/ and catalog/ paths every script and shell consumes are profile views built by scripts/use-profile.ts from profiles.json — switch brands with npm run profile:suse / npm run profile:start. Keeping each unit in its own repo lets it ship on its own cadence while the umbrella pins a known-good combination.

Architectural commitments

These decisions are settled. Changing any of them is a major undertaking:

Declarative tools. A tool is a manifest + template + assets. Inputs are declared in the manifest, not inferred from template tokens. hooks.js is an optional escape hatch for tools that need imperative behavior (chart.js rendering, QR encoding).

Tools and assets are data, not bundled code. Clients sync them from a signed manifest URL. New tools and assets don't require app updates.

Capability bridge. Tools never touch the filesystem, network, or DOM-outside-template directly. They call a versioned host.* API. This is what makes the same tool work in browser, Tauri, and CLI.

Stable asset IDs forever. suse/logo/primary is a contract. Never reuse, never rename. Version in the manifest, never in the path.

URL mode is first-class. Every input must be expressible as URL params. CLI mode = hidden browser + URL mode + file output. One render path.

Storage via the bridge. Tools call host.state.save() / host.state.load(). The bridge picks IndexedDB (web), filesystem (Tauri), or memory (CLI). Tools never know which.

Maturity tags. Every tool declares status: official | community | experimental. Experimental tools watermark their exports. This is the structural answer to the "brand approved by default" risk.

Getting started

Because the shippable units are submodules, clone recursively:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/lolly-tools/lolly.git
cd lolly
# already cloned non-recursively? → git submodule update --init --recursive

npm install                    # workspaces need every submodule's package.json — init submodules FIRST
                               # (postinstall picks a content profile automatically — see below)

npm run dev:web                # run the web shell
npm run cli -- qr-code --url=https://suse.com --output=./qr.svg   # run a tool headlessly
npm run validate:catalog       # validate the catalog

Content profiles. tools/ and catalog/ are gitignored views assembled from the mounted packs (profiles.json): the private brands/suse pack (skipped automatically on clone if you don't have access — it's update = none) plus the public community/ tools. Without SUSE access you land on the blank lolly-start brand and everything still builds and runs. Switch explicitly:

npm run profile          # show the active profile + what's available
npm run profile:suse     # SUSE brand pack (needs: git submodule update --init --checkout brands/suse)
npm run profile:start    # blank starter brand — community tools only

See docs/authoring-tools.md to build your first tool, and Development below for the submodule workflow. A new brand pack can be generated from design tokens with npm run ingest:brand (DTCG / Tokens Studio / Penpot exports).

Development

Lolly is an umbrella repo composed of git submodules (see Repository layout). That changes two things: how you clone, and where each change is committed.

Clone / update

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/lolly-tools/lolly.git
git submodule update --init --recursive     # in an existing clone — run BEFORE npm install

Each submodule is checked out on its own main, tracking its repo under github.com/lolly-tools/*.

Where your changes go — the umbrella pins a specific commit of each submodule, so a change is committed to the repo that owns the file, then the umbrella records the new pointer:

You edit…	Commits to
`engine/`, `schemas/`, `scripts/`, `tests/`, `api/`, root files	the umbrella (`lolly`)
`docs/`	`lolly-docs`
`community/` (or a community tool via the `tools/` view)	`lolly-tools`
`brands/suse/` (or SUSE tools/catalog via the views)	`suse-lolly` (private)
`brands/lolly-start/`, `profiles.json`	the umbrella (`lolly`)
`services/mcp`, `services/ca`	`lolly-mcp-server`, `lolly-ca`
any `shells/*`	`lolly-web` · `lolly-cli` · `lolly-tui` · `lolly-desktop` · `lolly-mobile` · `lolly-chrome-extension`

⚠️ Committing from the umbrella root does not capture edits made inside a submodule — git only sees the pointer. Commit inside the submodule, or use loldev (below). The tools/ and catalog/ views are symlinks into the packs, so editing through them lands in the right pack checkout automatically. Editing a SUSE tool touches two repos (suse-lolly + umbrella pointer); a community tool touches three (lolly-tools manifest, suse-lolly regenerated index, umbrella pointer).

loldev — one command to ship a change. A helper that does the multi-repo dance for you. Install it on your PATH:

ln -sf "$PWD/scripts/subrepo/loldev" /usr/local/bin/loldev   # or any dir on your PATH

loldev gtg -m "replaced suse logomark"   # build catalog → commit + push every changed
                                         # submodule to its repo → commit + push the umbrella
loldev gtg                               # same, with an empty commit message
loldev ship -m "…"                       # gtg, THEN deploy to Vercel prod (lolly.tools); --preview for a preview URL
loldev status                            # what's dirty / ahead, per repo
loldev profile suse|lolly-start          # switch the content profile (rebuilds tools/ + catalog views)
loldev pull                              # pull umbrella + update all submodules + refresh views
loldev dev                               # run the web shell
loldev cli -- qr-code --url=…            # run a tool headlessly
loldev help                              # every command

loldev operates on ~/Build/lolly by default (override with LOLLY_ROOT). The underlying scripts live in scripts/subrepo/ — sync.sh, status.sh, verify.sh, plus migrate.sh/snap-history.sh (the one-time split).

Current tools

The SUSE catalog ships 57 tools today — 56 listed in the gallery, plus one unlisted helper (Asset Export). Generated from catalog/tools/index.json by npm run build:readme-tools:

Tool	What it makes
3D	Load a 3D model into a lit scene, orbit and pose the camera, and render a still or a turntable animation.
Animated Ad	Build animated ads from layered scenes for any standard size.
Audiogram	Turn a voice clip or song into a branded waveform video — animated bars, wave or ring, ready for social.
Bag Video	An animated, on-brand video for bag visuals.
Booth Studio	Dress a 3D event booth with sponsor artwork. Click any panel to drop an image on it, pick a booth design, and render a still or a turntable for a sponsor pitch.
Brand Lockup	Official SUSE logo lockups — chameleon, wordmark and a name.
Calendar ICS	Turn event details into a calendar (.ics) file for any calendar app.
Carousel Maker	Design a multi-page carousel on one canvas — set 1–6 same-size pages, drop objects onto each page, export an image sequence or a multi-page PDF.
Chart Creator	On-brand charts from your data — bar, donut, pie or stacked.
Code Canvas	Turn code snippets into clean, syntax-highlighted, shareable images.
Color Block	Colour blocks — text, image, logo — auto-arranged into a grid.
Color Palette	Browse SUSE brand colors — click a swatch to copy it.
Compress PDF	Shrink a PDF by recompressing its images — on your device.
Convert Image	Turn HEIC, TIFF or any photo into WebP, JPEG or PNG — on your device.
Countdown Timer	A focused countdown with a live progress ring. Click to pause.
D3 Chart Studio	Powerful data-driven charts with D3 — paste a table and it charts itself. Bars, lines, areas, scatter, pie, radar, treemap, heatmap and more, on-brand and vector-clean.
Day Brief	Quote of the day with live weather, time and a map for any city.
Deck Builder	Build a slide deck with a live on-canvas editor — edit text, colours and images directly on each slide.
Deck Studio	Build a native, editable PowerPoint deck — real text, bullets, tables and brand theme — from a simple slide builder, pasted Markdown, or a JSON spec. Charts and diagrams come from your other Lolly tools. Exports .pptx (editable), plus PDF and PNG.
Diagram Builder	Org charts, flowcharts, timelines and more — from cards, text, Mermaid or CSV.
Doc Studio	Write a multi-page document on the canvas — rich text, headings, tables and inserted Lolly renders that flow onto pages and export as a PDF.
Dynamic Layout	A do-anything layout that recomposes around whatever you add, at any size.
Email Signature	An on-brand SUSE email signature, ready to paste into any client.
Event Name Badge	Conference name badges with a colour-coded role and optional QR.
Filter: Duotone	A two-color duotone for any photo — shadows one color, highlights another.
Filter: Halftone	Vector halftone from any photo — dots sized by brightness.
Filter: Pixel Stretch	Smear a column of pixels across a photo from a threshold line. Works live.
Filter: Posterize Bitmap	Trace any photo into flat, screenprint-style vector colour separations.
Filter: Scanline	Horizontal 'infinity lines' scanline vector effect from any photo
Filter: Voronoi Cells	Shatter any photo into a Voronoi cell mosaic — each cell filled with the nearest colour, as flat vector.
Flow Chart	Build flow charts on an open canvas — drag cards, connect them, and the lines route and stick to the boxes.
Layout Studio
Logo	Place the SUSE logo — it auto-picks the right variant and exports vector.
Logo Lockup: Grid (NASCAR)	Arrange a pile of logos into a clean, even sponsor grid — the “NASCAR” wall.
Logo Lockup: Partner	The SUSE logo beside a partner's, with a divider between — light or dark.
Lottie Ad	Build animated ads from layered scenes, each carrying a Lottie motion asset, for any standard size.
Meeting Planner	Plan a global meeting and see the time for every teammate's timezone.
Mesh Gradient	Soft mesh-style gradients from your brand swatches. Drag the colour points right on the canvas.
Multi-Page PDF	Build a multi-page PDF — a cover, flowing content blocks, and a back page.
Pose Geeko	Pose the SUSE Geeko with sliders — eyes, blink and limbs. No animation, just a still you can dial in and export print-ready.
Prompt to Image	AI models are cheaper at processing images than they are text
QR Code Generator	QR codes for any URL, with full color and style control.
Quote Card	On-brand quote cards for social posts and slides.
Rebrand a Deck	Upload a PowerPoint deck and snap its colours and fonts to your brand — rebuilt on your device, nothing uploaded.
Record	Design your own top and tail cards, then record a clip and Lolly wraps them around it automatically.
Screen Capture	Screenshot or record your whole screen, a window, or a browser tab. Drag on the canvas to crop — the export stays the exact pixels you captured.
Slides	Build a deck where every slide arranges other Lolly tools in a chosen layout, with its own title, background and speaker notes — then export to PowerPoint, PDF, GIF or MP4.
Street Map	Clean vector street-block maps of any city. Works offline.
Strip Hidden Data	Reveal and remove hidden metadata from images and PDFs — on your device.
Text Helper	Format, decode, hash and de-identify text — JSON, JWT and more.
Top & Tail Video	Record a clip in any orientation, then auto-wrap it with branded intro and outro bookends, a lower-third, and a music bed.
URL Screenshot	Any web page, at any scroll-depth, with custom CSS
Voice Recorder	Record a voice note with a live level meter and gentle coaching, then save it as MP3.
Wayfinding Signage	Directional event signs — destinations, each with an arrow. Print-ready.
Web Icon Maker	Favicon and app-icon maker — a multi-size .ico, plus PNG and SVG.
Wordmark	Type a word, get a pure-path vector wordmark in your brand font — recipients never need the font installed.

The utility "Offline Utilities" section always renders last in the gallery.

Licensing & structure

Every unit now lives in its own repo under github.com/lolly-tools, pinned as a submodule of this umbrella (see Repository layout).

Code — engine/, shells/, services/, docs/ — is MPL-2.0.
Tool content ships as brand packs. community/ (public lolly-tools) holds the brand-agnostic tools; brands/suse/ (private suse-lolly) holds the SUSE tools and catalog — including its licensed PremiumBeat music, which stays private with the pack. The repo-root tools/ and catalog/ are gitignored profile views assembled from those packs; see each pack's NOTICE.md.
catalog/fonts/ ships the SUSE and SUSE Mono typefaces under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 — neither the MPL nor SUSE-proprietary ("SUSE" is a SUSE trademark).

Bundled third-party attributions are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.