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Matplotlib Visualization Guide

A skill that guides Claude in building publication-quality plots with full low-level control in Matplotlib.

Data & AnalyticsIntermediate★ 33,030⑂ 3,248AI score 8/10Last updated: Aug 9, 2026

What it does

Teaches Claude to use Matplotlib, Python's foundational plotting library, following modern best practices.

  • Explains the Figure / Axes / Artist hierarchy and when to use pyplot vs. the object-oriented API (OO recommended)
  • Ready-to-adapt snippets for line, scatter, bar, histogram, heatmap, contour, box, violin, and 3D plots
  • Multi-panel layouts via subplots, subplot_mosaic, and GridSpec
  • Styling through rcParams and style sheets, plus colormap guidance (sequential / diverging / qualitative) and colorblind-safe advice
  • Export recipes for 300dpi PNG, PDF, and SVG with bbox_inches='tight' and transparency
  • A gotchas section covering overlapping elements, pyplot state confusion, and figure memory leaks

Who it's for

  • Researchers and grad students producing figures for papers and posters
  • Data analysts who need precise customization beyond default pandas/seaborn plots
  • Developers embedding charts in notebooks, reports, or GUI applications

Examples

  1. "Load this experiment CSV and produce a 2x2 panel of time series, scatter, histogram, and heatmap saved as a 300dpi PDF."
  2. "Redo this bar chart with a colorblind-friendly colormap plus hatching and export an SVG for journal submission."
  3. "Use GridSpec to build a figure with a wide summary panel on top and two detail panels below."

· · · Install guide · · ·

Install in the Claude app (no terminal)
  1. Download the ZIP with the button below.
  2. In Claude, open Settings → Capabilities and turn on 'Code execution and file creation'. (one time)
  3. Go to Customize → Skills → + → 'Upload a skill' and upload the ZIP.
↓ Download ZIP
Install in Claude Code

Let Claude do it — paste this into Claude Code

Install the skill I found on Claude Skill Mart.
Copy the skills/matplotlib folder from the GitHub repo K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills into my ~/.claude/skills/matplotlib/.
When it's done, tell me in one line what this skill can do.

Install with a command instead

git clone https://github.com/K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills.git && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r scientific-agent-skills/skills/matplotlib ~/.claude/skills/

⚠ This is a third-party skill. Check the source repository before installing.

  1. Open a terminal and clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills.git
  2. Create the skills folder if needed: mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
  3. Copy the whole matplotlib skill folder (including references/ and scripts/): cp -r scientific-agent-skills/skills/matplotlib ~/.claude/skills/
  4. Make sure you have Python 3.10+ and install the library: uv add matplotlib (add uv add ipympl for interactive Jupyter widgets)
  5. Restart Claude Code and ask something like "plot this data with matplotlib" to trigger the skill.
View source on GitHub ↗License: MIT