Optimize JPEG

Squeeze JPEG file size. Two modes:

• lossless (default) — jpegoptim --strip-all. Repacks Huffman tables and strips metadata. No re-encode, no quality change.
• recompress — mozjpeg (cjpeg-mozjpeg). Re-encodes with better quantisation tables; 10–15% smaller than libjpeg-turbo for the same SSIM. Quality flag controls trade-off.

When to use

• Web-prep: photo galleries, blog images, anything destined for upload.
• Archive squeeze: lossless mode is the no-regret option for any JPEG-heavy folder.
• Pre-step inside web-ready orchestrator.

Do not use this skill when:

• Source is PNG → use optimize-png.
• Source is HEIC/RAW/TIFF — pipe through web-ready (or convert first).
• The JPEG is already heavily compressed (<70% quality estimate) — recompress will visibly degrade.

Inputs

1. Input — file or directory. Required.
2. Mode — lossless (default) or recompress.
3. Recursive — --recursive for directory descent.
4. In-place — default. --output-dir <path> to write copies.
5. Quality (mode=recompress) — cjpeg-mozjpeg -quality N. Default 82 (web-quality). 90 for archival; 75 for aggressive web compression.
6. Strip metadata — default on for both modes. EXIF/IPTC/XMP gone. Use --keep-metadata to preserve.
7. Progressive — default on. Smaller files + better perceived load. --baseline to disable for compatibility with very old decoders.

Procedure

1. Verify the relevant binary. which jpegoptim for lossless; which cjpeg-mozjpeg (or fallback which cjpeg) for recompress. If missing, point at install-deps.
2. Enumerate inputs (JPEG/JPG only — skip with note).

3. Lossless (jpegoptim):

   jpegoptim --strip-all --all-progressive [--dest <out-dir>] "<input>"

   --all-progressive forces progressive output (smaller). --strip-all removes EXIF/IPTC/XMP/comments. Drop these if --keep-metadata was set.

4. Recompress (mozjpeg):

   mozjpeg's CLI is decode-then-encode, so for in-place behaviour:

   djpeg "<input>" | cjpeg-mozjpeg -quality <q> -progressive [-optimize] > "<output>"

   Or use jpegtran-mozjpeg for lossless transforms when only metadata stripping + Huffman repack is desired (essentially a faster jpegoptim).

   For batch, parallelise with xargs -P <ncpu>.

5. Sanity-check: any output file >95% of input size in recompress mode — keep the original instead. cjpeg-mozjpeg occasionally inflates already-optimised inputs.

Output

• Optimised JPEGs at the resolved paths.
• Summary:
  • Files processed / skipped / failed / kept-original (where recompress would have inflated).
  • Total: <orig-MB> → <new-MB> (<pct>% saved).
  • Visible-quality flag: if recompress was used and the source had a quality estimate <75 (via identify -format "%Q"), surface a warning per file.

Notes

• mozjpeg is a drop-in libjpeg-turbo replacement with smarter trellis quantisation. It's slower than libjpeg-turbo by ~3× — fine for web-prep, not for thumbnail generation.
• For "I just want it smaller, don't touch quality": always use lossless mode. Free win.
• The orchestrator (web-ready) defaults to: resize first, then encode WebP/AVIF, fall back to mozjpeg for JPEG output. This skill exists to do JPEG-only optimisation without that pipeline.