Face Recognition Repo Skill

Purpose

Use this skill when the task involves the face_recognition Python package or its installed console tools:

• detecting faces in photos or image folders;
• extracting face landmarks or 128-dimensional encodings;
• comparing known and unknown faces with distances or tolerance thresholds;
• running the face_recognition or face_detection command-line tools;
• adapting the repository's image, webcam/video, KNN/SVM, Flask, Raspberry Pi, Docker, or CUDA guidance without depending on the original checkout;
• debugging dlib, face_recognition_models, model-file, CLI, optional dependency, or headless-display failures.

Read repo provenance before relying on version-sensitive facts or refreshing this skill for a newer checkout.

Install and quick checks

For normal package use, install the public distribution and verify imports:

python -m pip install face_recognition
python - <<'PY'
import face_recognition
print(face_recognition.__version__)
PY

For editable repository development, install the checkout with its package metadata (python -m pip install -e .) and match a Python version supported by the current repo/tests when practical. The core runtime dependencies are dlib, face_recognition_models, numpy, Pillow, and Click.

Run scripts/check_install.py when installation, model loading, or console scripts are uncertain:

python scripts/check_install.py

If imports fail, or if face_recognition_models warns about pkg_resources, read troubleshooting before changing package versions.

Route by task

If the user needs to...	Read or run
Use Python functions (load_image_file, face_locations, face_landmarks, face_encodings, compare_faces, face_distance, batch_face_locations)	API reference and workflows
Try a safe headless API demo on user-provided images	scripts/showcase_api.py
Recognize identities or detect face boxes from the shell	CLI reference
Adapt optional image, video/webcam, KNN/SVM, Flask, Raspberry Pi, or batch/CNN patterns	workflows
Package or deploy an app using Docker, CUDA, cloud hosts, or PyInstaller	deployment notes
Diagnose install/import/runtime problems	troubleshooting and then scripts/check_install.py
Decide whether this skill is stale for a checkout	repo provenance

Operating rules

• Do not assume the original repository's examples/, docs/, tests/, or image fixtures exist. Use user-provided images or the bundled scripts and references in this skill.
• Always guard calls like face_recognition.face_encodings(image)[0]; no face means an empty list, not a usable encoding.
• Treat coordinates as (top, right, bottom, left). Crop with image[top:bottom, left:right].
• The default face detector is CPU-friendly HOG. The CNN detector and batch_face_locations are useful for accuracy/batch workflows, but CUDA is only an optional acceleration path, not a requirement for the core API.
• Use face_distance or CLI --show-distance to tune tolerance; lower tolerance is stricter and can reduce false positives at the cost of more false negatives.
• For known-person folders, the CLI uses the image file basename as the label and expects one usable face per known image.
• Optional examples that need OpenCV, Flask, scikit-learn, scipy, Raspberry Pi camera hardware, GUI display, network streams, or Docker should stay optional unless the user explicitly asks for that workflow.
• Face recognition has fairness, age, privacy, consent, and legal constraints. The repository documents poorer performance on children and variation across demographic groups; surface these caveats in user-facing applications.

Evidence-backed helper scripts

• scripts/check_install.py checks importability, installed versions, core API smoke behavior, and CLI help availability.
• scripts/showcase_api.py is a headless adaptation of the image detection, landmark, distance, comparison, and batch example patterns. It accepts image paths supplied by the user and never reads the original repository examples.