Automate Video Editing and Distribution

An Agent Skill for Claude Code and Codex that turns authorized source footage into one reviewed long-form edit and ten reviewed YouTube Shorts with explicit human checkpoints.

Agents should begin with AGENTS.md. Claude Code also loads CLAUDE.md when working from this repository.

It covers:

• dependency and Selects MCP preflight;
• single-camera and multicamera intake;
• user-reviewed synchronization before multicamera project creation;
• deterministic draft-to-export mapping inside one exact job directory;
• blurred, uncropped 9:16 layouts and ASS karaoke captions;
• user-only Selects exports and YouTube Studio file drag-and-drop;
• visible YouTube metadata, scheduling, and final reconciliation.

Requirements

• macOS with the signed Selects desktop app;
• Claude Code or Codex with the Selects MCP and a visible browser-control integration available;
• FFmpeg and ffprobe with the subtitles filter;
• a current Node.js release;
• media you are authorized to edit and a YouTube channel you are authorized to manage.

The skill requires a reachable, nonempty Selects MCP surface but does not fail preflight because a preferred tool name is missing. It resolves capabilities from the live tool schemas at the phase where they are needed and stops only there when no safe compatible implementation exists.

Install

Review install.sh, then choose the target agent.

Claude Code:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CutbackVideo/automate-video-editing-distribution/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --claude

Codex:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CutbackVideo/automate-video-editing-distribution/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --codex

The installer uses ~/.claude/skills for Claude Code and ${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills for Codex. It never hard-codes a username and refuses to overwrite an existing installation.

Manual installation is also supported:

# Claude Code
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/CutbackVideo/automate-video-editing-distribution.git \
  "$HOME/.claude/skills/automate-video-editing-distribution"

# Codex
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/CutbackVideo/automate-video-editing-distribution.git \
  "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills/automate-video-editing-distribution"

Claude Code watches existing skill directories for changes. If ~/.claude/skills did not exist when the session began, restart Claude Code for automatic discovery. An agent already working from this repository should continue by reading SKILL.md directly instead of stopping after installation.

One-line agent handoff

Send an agent this instruction with the repository URL:

Clone https://github.com/CutbackVideo/automate-video-editing-distribution, read CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md, install the skill for your runtime, validate it, and execute the requested video workflow end-to-end. Installing the skill is not completion; continue until a required human checkpoint or a verified blocker.

Use

Ask the agent to use automate-video-editing-distribution and provide the authorized source folder or absolute media paths. The skill will stop at every required sync, export, and YouTube file-drop checkpoint.

Validate

node scripts/validate-selects-tool-surface.mjs --live
node --check scripts/words-to-ass.mjs
node --test scripts/words-to-ass.test.mjs
bash -n scripts/render-short.sh
bash tests/render-short-blur.sh

Run the tool-surface check while the signed Selects desktop app is open. It queries the active MCP tools/list, fails only when the surface is unreachable or empty, and reports absent preferred tools as preferredMissing advisories for point-of-use resolution. The render integration test requires FFmpeg with libass subtitle support.

Privacy

This repository contains only reusable skill instructions, scripts, and tests. Do not commit source footage, rendered media, job.json, upload-manifest.json, browser data, tokens, cookies, or account emails.

Standalone resources

• Vertical Reframe + Karaoke Captions turns a finished landscape edit into an uncropped 1080×1920 Short with word-level karaoke captions. Copy only the section between the PROMPT — COPY markers into an agent.

Agent handoff:

Read https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CutbackVideo/automate-video-editing-distribution/main/resources/shorts-reframe-caption-prompt.md and follow only the section between the PROMPT COPY markers.

• Grok + Selects Walkthrough takes a first-time viewer from installing Grok Build to a finished cut handed off to Premiere, Final Cut, or DaVinci Resolve, using live X search to pick the angle. Verified 2026-08-12 against Selects.app 2.0.5 and Grok CLI 1.0.3.
• Grok X Search MCP adds real-time X search to any MCP client. Grok Build has web search but no X search; x_search is only reachable through xAI's /v1/responses Agent Tools API.
• Grok Research-to-Script Kit turns a trending X topic into a fact-checked, shootable script in one Grok session: role-based URL selection, engagement gates via x_post_stats, official-vs-community fact separation, and voice matching. Each rule documents the real failure that motivated it.
• Grok Setup Brief is written for an agent onboarding a teammate's machine: preflight, verification gates, stop conditions, the full Selects capability map, and a plain-language summary block the agent relays when the human asks what was set up.

Agent handoff:

Read https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CutbackVideo/automate-video-editing-distribution/main/resources/grok-setup-brief.md and set up Grok Build with the Selects and xsearch MCP servers on this machine. Follow the preflight and stop conditions exactly. Do not report completion until `grok mcp doctor` shows 2 healthy servers AND a live Selects tool call has returned real data.

Additional skill: Vox Video

This repository also contains vox-video/, a separate Agent Skill for building Vox-style editorial motion graphics with Remotion. Its entry point is vox-video/AGENTS.md; the root AGENTS.md remains the entry point for the video editing and distribution workflow documented above.

One-line handoff for the Vox Video skill:

Clone https://github.com/CutbackVideo/automate-video-editing-distribution, read and follow vox-video/AGENTS.md, and use the vox-video skill for my request.