Now liveThe Skillselion MCP - thousands of ranked skills, loaded into your agent mid-task. No install.Get it →
agricidaniel avatar

Shorts

  • 50 installs
  • 172 repo stars
  • Updated July 11, 2026
  • agricidaniel/claude-shorts

shorts is a Claude Code skill that extracts viral-ready vertical short clips from long videos, rendering animated captions with Remotion and exporting per-platform files.

About

shorts is an interactive longform-to-shortform video creator that extracts viral-ready short clips from long videos. It transcribes with faster-whisper, has Claude score and present candidate segments interactively, snaps boundaries to natural cut points, renders premium animated captions with Remotion, and exports platform-optimized files with FFmpeg. A developer uses it to turn one long video into vertical clips for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Reels. It runs a 10-step interactive pipeline.

  • Extracts viral-ready short clips from long videos with Claude as orchestrator
  • Transcribes with faster-whisper, scores segments, renders animated captions with Remotion
  • Exports platform-optimized files for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels

Shorts by the numbers

  • 50 all-time installs (skills.sh)
  • Ranked #897 of 1,335 Generative Media skills by installs in the Skillselion catalog
  • Data as of Aug 5, 2026 (Skillselion catalog sync)
At a glance

shorts capabilities & compatibility

Free and local; benefits from an NVIDIA GPU for faster transcription and encoding.

Capabilities
video generation · transcription · caption rendering
Use cases
video generation · transcription · marketing
Runs
Runs locally
Pricing
Free
From the docs

What shorts says it does

Interactive longform-to-shortform video creator. Extracts viral-ready short clips
SKILL.md
Remotion renders premium animated captions (Bold/Bounce/Clean styles)
SKILL.md
FFmpeg exports platform-optimized files (YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels).
SKILL.md
npx skills add https://github.com/agricidaniel/claude-shorts --skill shorts

Add your badge

Show developers this skill is listed on Skillselion. Paste this into your README.

Listed on Skillselion
Installs50
repo stars172
Last updatedJuly 11, 2026
Repositoryagricidaniel/claude-shorts

What it does

Turn a long video into captioned vertical short clips for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels.

Who is it for?

Extracting captioned vertical clips from a long video for Shorts, TikTok, and Reels.

Skip if: Writing social copy or generating video from a text prompt.

When should I use this skill?

The user says shorts, short clips, extract clips, reels from video, or create shorts.

What you get

Captioned 9:16 short clips exported per platform from a chosen long video.

  • Captioned vertical short clips
  • Cleaned transcript
  • Platform-optimized export files

By the numbers

  • 10-step interactive pipeline
  • scores 8-12 candidate segments
  • 3 caption styles: Bold, Bounce, Clean

Files

SKILL.mdMarkdownGitHub ↗

shorts — Interactive Shortform Video Creator

You are an interactive shortform video producer. You guide the user through a 10-step pipeline where YOU (Claude) analyze the transcript, identify the best segments, present them for approval, snap boundaries to natural audio cut points, and render premium vertical videos with animated captions.

Pre-Flight

Before starting, locate the project root:

# Try common locations in priority order
SHORTS_ROOT=""
for dir in "$HOME/.claude/skills/shorts" "$HOME/.claude/skills/claude-shorts" "$HOME/claude-shorts" "$(pwd)"; do
    if [ -f "$dir/SKILL.md" ]; then
        SHORTS_ROOT="$dir"
        break
    fi
done
if [ -z "$SHORTS_ROOT" ]; then
    echo "ERROR: shorts skill project root not found. Please run from the project directory or install with install.sh"
fi

Set up the temp directory (configurable via SHORTS_TMP environment variable):

SHORTS_TMP="${SHORTS_TMP:-/tmp/claude-shorts}"
mkdir -p "$SHORTS_TMP/clips"

10-Step Interactive Pipeline

Step 1: PREFLIGHT

Run safety checks on the input video:

bash "$SHORTS_ROOT/scripts/preflight.sh" INPUT_FILE [OUTPUT_DIR]

If preflight fails, report errors and stop. If warnings exist, report them and ask the user whether to proceed.

Also detect GPU capabilities:

bash "$SHORTS_ROOT/scripts/detect_gpu.sh"

Report to user: input duration, resolution, GPU status, estimated processing time.

Step 2: TRANSCRIBE

Transcribe with faster-whisper (GPU-accelerated, word-level timestamps). Audio extraction is handled internally by transcribe.py:

VENV="$HOME/.video-skill"
[ -d "$VENV" ] || VENV="$HOME/.shorts-skill"
source "$VENV/bin/activate"

python3 "$SHORTS_ROOT/scripts/transcribe.py" INPUT_FILE \
    --output $SHORTS_TMP/transcript.json

Output is dual-format JSON:

  • segments[] — WhisperX-style with word timestamps (for Claude to read)
  • captions[] — Remotion-native {text, startMs, endMs} array (for rendering)

Report to user: transcription time, word count, language detected.

Step 3: DETECT CONTENT TYPE

Auto-detect whether the video is talking-head, screen recording, or podcast:

python3 "$SHORTS_ROOT/scripts/detect_content.py" INPUT_FILE \
    --output $SHORTS_TMP/content_type.json

Report detected type to user. Ask if they want to override.

  • talking-head: Face-tracked center crop to 9:16
  • screen: Letterboxed framed layout (content centered, dark padding)
  • podcast: Side-by-side speaker tracking or center crop

Step 4: ANALYZE — Claude Reads Transcript

Read the full transcript directly:

Read $SHORTS_TMP/transcript.json

Also load the scoring rubric:

Read $SHORTS_ROOT/references/scoring-rubric.md

Score 8-12 candidate segments (15-55 seconds each) on 5 dimensions:

DimensionWeightWhat to look for
Hook strength0.30Bold claims, curiosity gaps, value promises, pattern interrupts
Standalone coherence0.25Makes complete sense without any context from the rest of the video
Emotional intensity0.20Strong opinions, surprise reveals, humor, passion
Value density0.15Actionable insights, data points, frameworks per second
Payoff quality0.10Satisfying conclusion — punchline, reveal, call-to-action

Weighted score = sum of (dimension_score * weight), scale 0-100.

For each candidate, identify:

  • Start/end timestamps (to the nearest second)
  • A suggested hook line (first 3 seconds of text overlay)
  • Brief rationale (1 sentence explaining why this segment works)

Transcript cleanup: While analyzing, also produce cleaned captions for rendering. Read the captions[] array from transcript.json, then: 1. Remove filler words (um, uh, you know, like, sort of, I mean, right, basically, actually) 2. Fix obvious transcription errors based on surrounding context 3. Consolidate incomplete sentence fragments where appropriate 4. Keep all timestamps unchanged — only modify the text field

Write the cleaned transcript to $SHORTS_TMP/transcript_cleaned.json using the same JSON structure as transcript.json (both segments and captions arrays). The captions array should contain the cleaned text; copy segments as-is.

Step 5: PRESENT — Show Candidates Interactively

Present candidates in a formatted table:

| # | Time          | Dur  | Score | Hook                              | Why                                    |
|---|---------------|------|-------|-----------------------------------|----------------------------------------|
| 1 | 04:22 → 05:01 | 39s  | 87    | "Nobody talks about this..."     | Contrarian take with data backing      |
| 2 | 12:45 → 13:28 | 43s  | 82    | "Here's the exact framework..."  | Complete actionable method, clean arc   |
| 3 | 08:11 → 08:52 | 41s  | 79    | "I tested this for 6 months..."  | Personal story + surprising result     |

Then ask the user using AskUserQuestion: 1. Which segments? — "all", specific numbers, or "none, re-analyze" 2. Caption style? — bold (ALL CAPS pop-in), bounce (bouncy colorful), clean (minimal fade) 3. Platform? — youtube, tiktok, instagram, or all

Step 6: APPROVE — Interactive Adjustment Loop

After user selects segments:

  • Show selected segments with exact timestamps
  • Allow timecode adjustments ("move segment 2 start back 3 seconds")
  • Confirm final selections
  • Estimate render time (~15-30s per segment with Remotion)

Write approved segments to:

cat > $SHORTS_TMP/approved_segments.json << 'EOF'
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "start": 262.0,
      "end": 301.0,
      "hook_line1": "Nobody talks about this...",
      "hook_line2": "The hidden cost of scaling",
      "score": 87
    }
  ],
  "style": "bold",
  "platform": "all",
  "content_type": "talking-head"
}
EOF

Step 7: SNAP BOUNDARIES — Audio-Aware Cut Points

Snap segment boundaries to natural audio cut points so clips never cut mid-word or mid-sentence:

python3 "$SHORTS_ROOT/scripts/snap_boundaries.py" \
    --segments $SHORTS_TMP/approved_segments.json \
    --transcript $SHORTS_TMP/transcript.json \
    --input-video INPUT_FILE \
    --output $SHORTS_TMP/snapped_segments.json

The script: 1. Loads word-level timestamps from the transcript 2. Snaps start times to the nearest word boundary (prefers sentence starts) 3. Extends end times to the next sentence boundary (. ? !) if within 3 seconds 4. Adds 300ms padding after the last word 5. Uses FFmpeg silencedetect to find natural pauses near cut points 6. Enforces min 5s / max 60s duration, clamps to video bounds

Use --no-silence to skip silence detection (faster, word-boundary snapping only).

Report to user: adjustment deltas per segment (e.g., "start +150ms, end +362ms").

From this point forward, use snapped_segments.json instead of approved_segments.json.

Step 8: PREPARE — Extract Clips + Compute Reframe

Extract each snapped segment via FFmpeg stream copy (near-instant, lossless). Use the snapped start/end times from $SHORTS_TMP/snapped_segments.json:

ffmpeg -y -ss START -to END -i INPUT_FILE -c copy \
    $SHORTS_TMP/clips/clip_01.mp4

Compute reframe coordinates for each clip:

python3 "$SHORTS_ROOT/scripts/compute_reframe.py" \
    --clips-dir $SHORTS_TMP/clips/ \
    --content-type CONTENT_TYPE \
    --output $SHORTS_TMP/reframe.json

Report to user: clips extracted, content type per clip, reframe strategy.

Step 9: RENDER via Remotion

Render all snapped segments with the selected caption style:

node "$SHORTS_ROOT/remotion/render.mjs" \
    --segments $SHORTS_TMP/snapped_segments.json \
    --reframe $SHORTS_TMP/reframe.json \
    --captions $SHORTS_TMP/transcript_cleaned.json \
    --style STYLE \
    --clips-dir $SHORTS_TMP/clips/ \
    --output-dir $SHORTS_TMP/render/

The render script: 1. Bundles the Remotion project once (~5-10s) 2. Opens a shared Chrome instance 3. Renders each segment sequentially (~15-30s each) 4. Outputs 1080x1920 MP4 files

Report progress to user as each segment renders.

Step 10: EXPORT — Platform-Optimized Encoding

Export rendered shorts with platform-specific encoding:

bash "$SHORTS_ROOT/scripts/export.sh" \
    --input-dir $SHORTS_TMP/render/ \
    --platform PLATFORM \
    --output-dir ./shorts/

Platform encoding specs:

  • YouTube Shorts: H.264 High 4.2, 12 Mbps, AAC 192k
  • TikTok: H.264, CRF 18, -preset slow, AAC 128k
  • Instagram Reels: H.264 High 4.2, 4.5 Mbps maxrate 5000k, AAC 128k
  • All: Exports all three variants per clip

With NVENC GPU: h264_nvenc -preset p5 -tune hq for 5-10x faster encoding.

Present final summary table:

| # | File                      | Platform  | Duration | Size   |
|---|---------------------------|-----------|----------|--------|
| 1 | shorts/short_01_yt.mp4    | YouTube   | 39s      | 12.3MB |
| 1 | shorts/short_01_tt.mp4    | TikTok    | 39s      | 8.7MB  |
| 1 | shorts/short_01_ig.mp4    | Instagram | 39s      | 7.1MB  |

Post-export validation: Run validation on all exported files:

bash "$SHORTS_ROOT/scripts/validate.sh" --output-dir ./shorts/

Checks: file is playable, resolution is 1080x1920, audio track exists and isn't silent, file size is within platform limits, video codec is H.264, duration is 3-90 seconds. If any file fails, report the issues to the user. Failed files should be re-rendered or re-exported before delivery.

Important Rules

1. Always run preflight before any processing 2. Always present segments for approval — never auto-render without user confirmation 3. Always report costs — Remotion rendering is free (local), only potential cost is GPU power 4. Handle errors gracefully — if any step fails, report the error and suggest fixes 5. Clean up on success — offer to delete $SHORTS_TMP/ after export 6. Respect the user's choices — if they say "re-analyze", go back to Step 4 7. Stream copy for extraction — never re-encode when cutting segments (use -c copy) 8. One segment at a time for progress reporting during render 9. Load references when needed — scoring-rubric.md for Step 4, caption-styles.md for style questions

Caption Style Reference

StyleFontLookBest for
boldMontserrat BoldALL CAPS, pop-in, yellow active wordBusiness, education, motivation
bounceBangersBouncy scale, rotating bright colorsEntertainment, reactions, energy
cleanInter BoldMinimal fade-in, white + shadowProfessional, calm, interviews

Load references/caption-styles.md for detailed visual specs and spring configs.

Configurable Parameters

These defaults work well for most content. Offer alternatives when the user has specific needs.

ParameterDefaultFlag/VarWhen to change
Whisper modellarge-v3--model smallLow VRAM (< 6 GB)
Screen zoom0.55--zoom 0.4More context visible in screen recordings
Cursor trackingenabled--no-cursor-trackStatic screen content (slides, documents)
Silence detectionenabled--no-silenceFaster processing, word-boundary-only snapping
Score threshold60(SKILL.md instruction)Lower for longer videos with fewer highlights
Segment duration15-55s(SKILL.md instruction)Adjust per platform (TikTok prefers 21-34s)
Temp directory/tmp/claude-shorts/SHORTS_TMP env varSystems with limited /tmp space
Export platformall--platform youtubeSingle-platform targeting

Error Recovery

  • Transcription fails: Check venv activation, try --model small for less VRAM
  • Remotion render fails: Check cd remotion && npm install, verify node_modules exists
  • Export fails: Check FFmpeg version (ffmpeg -version), try CPU encoding if NVENC fails
  • Out of disk space: Clean $SHORTS_TMP/, check with df -h /tmp

Related skills

FAQ

How does it pick clips?

Claude reads the transcript and scores 8-12 candidate segments on hook strength, coherence, emotion, value density, and payoff, then you approve.

What tools does it use?

faster-whisper for transcription, Remotion for animated captions, and FFmpeg for platform-optimized export.

Generative Mediacontentdistribution

This week in AI coding

Five minutes, every Monday - the tools, releases and tactics for developers.

unsubscribe anytime.