Video Podcast Maker Agent Skill

> REQUIRED: Load Remotion Best Practices First

>

> This skill depends on remotion-best-practices. You MUST invoke it before proceeding:

> `

> Invoke the skill/tool named: remotion-best-practices

> `

Video Podcast Maker

Quick Start

Open your coding agent and say: "Make a video podcast about $ARGUMENTS"

Or invoke directly: /video-podcast-maker AI Agent tutorial

Design Learning (Optional)

Extract visual design patterns from reference videos or images and apply them to new video compositions. Skip this section unless the user provides a reference video/image or asks to save/list/delete style profiles.

→ See references/design-learning.md for commands, reference-library management, style-profile management, and integration with Pre-workflow / Step 9.

Auto Update Check

Agent behavior: Check for updates at most once per day (throttled by timestamp file).

Before any shell command that reads files from this skill, resolve SKILL_DIR to the directory containing SKILL.md.

If your agent exposes a built-in skill directory variable such as ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}, you may map it to SKILL_DIR.

SKILL_DIR="${SKILL_DIR:-${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}}"
STAMP="${SKILL_DIR}/.last_update_check"
NOW=$(date +%s)
LAST=$(cat "$STAMP" 2>/dev/null || echo 0)
if [ ! -d "${SKILL_DIR}/.git" ]; then
  echo "MANUAL_INSTALL"
elif [ $((NOW - LAST)) -gt 86400 ]; then
  timeout 5 git -C "${SKILL_DIR}" fetch --quiet 2>/dev/null || true
  LOCAL=$(git -C "${SKILL_DIR}" rev-parse HEAD 2>/dev/null)
  REMOTE=$(git -C "${SKILL_DIR}" rev-parse origin/main 2>/dev/null)
  echo "$NOW" > "$STAMP"
  if [ -n "$LOCAL" ] && [ -n "$REMOTE" ] && [ "$LOCAL" != "$REMOTE" ]; then
    echo "UPDATE_AVAILABLE"
  else
    echo "UP_TO_DATE"
  fi
else
  echo "SKIPPED_RECENT_CHECK"
fi

• Update available: Ask the user whether to pull updates. Yes → git -C "${SKILL_DIR}" pull. No → continue.
• Up to date / Skipped: Continue silently.
• Manual install (no .git directory — skill was installed via tarball/zip/cp): Continue silently. Auto-update is disabled; the user must reinstall manually to update.

Prerequisites Check

!python3 "${SKILL_DIR}/scripts/check_prereqs.py"

If MISSING reported above, see README.md for full setup instructions (install commands, API key setup, Remotion project init). The check is backend-aware: backend is resolved as TTS_BACKEND env var → user_prefs.json (global.tts.backend) → edge default, then only env vars required by that backend are validated.

Overview

Automated pipeline for professional Bilibili horizontal knowledge videos from a topic.

> Target: Bilibili horizontal video (16:9)

> - Resolution: 3840×2160 (4K) or 1920×1080 (1080p)

> - Style: Clean white (default)

Tech stack: Coding agent + TTS backend + Remotion + FFmpeg

Output Specs

| Parameter | Horizontal (16:9) | Vertical (9:16) |

|-----------|-------------------|-----------------|

| Resolution | 3840×2160 (4K) | 2160×3840 (4K) |

| Frame rate | 30 fps | 30 fps |

| Encoding | H.264, 16Mbps | H.264, 16Mbps |

| Audio | AAC, 192kbps | AAC, 192kbps |

| Duration | 1-15 min | 60-90s (highlight) |

Execution Modes

Agent behavior: Detect user intent at workflow start:

• "Make a video about..." / no special instructions → Auto Mode
• "I want to control each step" / mentions interactive → Interactive Mode
• Default: Auto Mode

Auto Mode (Default)

Full pipeline with sensible defaults. Mandatory stop at Step 9:

• Step 9: Launch Remotion Studio — user reviews in real-time, requests changes until satisfied
• Step 10: Only triggered when user explicitly says "render 4K" / "render final version"

| Step | Decision | Auto Default |

|------|----------|-------------|

| 3 | Title position | top-center |

| 5 | Media assets | Skip (text-only animations) |

| 7 | Thumbnail method | Remotion-generated (16:9 + 4:3) |

| 9 | Outro animation | Pre-made MP4 (white/black by theme) |

| 9 | Preview method | Remotion Studio (mandatory) |

| 12 | Subtitles | Skip |

| 14 | Cleanup | Auto-clean temp files |

Users can override any default in their initial request:

• "make a video about AI, burn subtitles" → auto + subtitles on
• "use dark theme, AI thumbnails" → auto + dark + imagen
• "need screenshots" → auto + media collection enabled

Interactive Mode

Prompts at each decision point. Activated by:

• "interactive mode" / "I want to choose each option"
• User explicitly requests control

Technical Rules

Hard constraints for video production. Visual design remains the agent's creative freedom within these rules:

| Rule | Requirement |

|------|-------------|

| Single Project | All videos under videos/{name}/ in user's Remotion project. NEVER create a new project per video. |

| 4K Output | 3840×2160, use scale(2) wrapper over 1920×1080 design space |

| Content Width | ≥85% of screen width |

| Bottom Safe Zone | Bottom 100px reserved for subtitles |

| Audio Sync | All animations driven by timing.json timestamps |

| Thumbnail | MUST generate 16:9 (1920×1080) AND 4:3 (1200×900). Centered layout, title ≥120px, icons ≥120px, fill most of canvas. See design-guide.md. |

| Font | PingFang SC / Noto Sans SC for Chinese text |

| Studio Before Render | MUST launch remotion studio for user review. NEVER render 4K until user explicitly confirms ("render 4K", "render final"). |

Additional Resources

Load these files on demand — do NOT load all at once:

• references/workflow-steps.md: Index of the 15-step workflow split across three phase files. Load at workflow start to locate which phase file to pull:
• workflow-script.md — Pre-workflow + Startup + Steps 1-4 (scripting)
• workflow-production.md — Steps 5-11 (media, TTS, Remotion, render, BGM)
• workflow-publish.md — Steps 12-15 (subtitles, publish, cleanup, shorts)
• references/design-guide.md: Visual minimums, typography, layout patterns, checklists. MUST load before Step 9.
• references/design-learning.md: Extracting visual patterns from reference videos/images, style profiles. Load only when the user provides a reference or manages profiles.
• references/troubleshooting.md: Error fixes, BGM options, preference commands, preference learning. Load on error or user request.
• examples/: Real production video projects. The agent may reference these for composition structure and timing.json format.

Directory Structure

project-root/                           # Remotion project root
├── src/remotion/                       # Remotion source
│   ├── compositions/                   # Video composition definitions
│   ├── Root.tsx                        # Remotion entry
│   └── index.ts                        # Exports
│
├── public/                             # Remotion default (unused — use --public-dir videos/{name}/)
│
├── videos/{video-name}/                # Video project assets
│   ├── topic_definition.md             # Step 1
│   ├── topic_research.md               # Step 2
│   ├── podcast.txt                     # Step 4: narration script
│   ├── podcast_audio.wav               # Step 8: TTS audio
│   ├── podcast_audio.srt               # Step 8: subtitles
│   ├── timing.json                     # Step 8: timeline
│   ├── thumbnail_*.png                 # Step 7
│   ├── output.mp4                      # Step 10
│   ├── video_with_bgm.mp4             # Step 11
│   ├── final_video.mp4                 # Step 12: final output
│   └── bgm.mp3                         # Background music
│
└── remotion.config.ts

> Important: Always use --public-dir and full output path for Remotion render:

> `bash

> npx remotion render src/remotion/index.ts CompositionId videos/{name}/output.mp4 --public-dir videos/{name}/

> `

Naming Rules

Video name {video-name}: lowercase English, hyphen-separated (e.g., reference-manager-comparison)

Section name {section}: lowercase English, underscore-separated, matches [SECTION:xxx]

Thumbnail naming (16:9 AND 4:3 both required):

| Type | 16:9 | 4:3 |

|------|------|-----|

| Remotion | thumbnail_remotion_16x9.png | thumbnail_remotion_4x3.png |

| AI | thumbnail_ai_16x9.png | thumbnail_ai_4x3.png |

Public Directory

Use --public-dir videos/{name}/ for all Remotion commands. Each video's assets (timing.json, podcast_audio.wav, bgm.mp3) stay in its own directory — no copying to public/ needed. This enables parallel renders of different videos.

# All render/studio/still commands use --public-dir
npx remotion studio src/remotion/index.ts --public-dir videos/{name}/
npx remotion render src/remotion/index.ts CompositionId videos/{name}/output.mp4 --public-dir videos/{name}/ --video-bitrate 16M
npx remotion still src/remotion/index.ts Thumbnail16x9 videos/{name}/thumbnail.png --public-dir videos/{name}/

Workflow

Progress Tracking

At Step 1 start, use your agent's task tracker (Claude Code TaskCreate / Codex todo list / equivalent) to create one task per step. Mark in_progress on start, completed on finish. Files in videos/{name}/ (e.g. podcast.txt, timing.json, output.mp4) act as the durable record of what completed — if a session is interrupted, inspect the directory to determine where to resume.

 1. Define topic direction → topic_definition.md
 2. Research topic → topic_research.md
 3. Design video sections (5-7 chapters)
 4. Write narration script → podcast.txt
 4.5. Pronunciation pre-flight (zh-CN only) → videos/{name}/phonemes.json
 5. Collect media assets → media_manifest.json
 6. Generate publish info (Part 1) → publish_info.md
 7. Generate thumbnails (16:9 + 4:3) → thumbnail_*.png
 8. Generate TTS audio → podcast_audio.wav, timing.json
 9. Create Remotion composition + Studio preview (mandatory stop)
10. Render 4K video (only on user request) → output.mp4
11. Mix background music → video_with_bgm.mp4
12. Add subtitles (optional) → final_video.mp4
13. Complete publish info (Part 2) → chapter timestamps
14. Verify output & cleanup
15. Generate vertical shorts (optional) → shorts/

Validation Checkpoints

After Step 8 (TTS):

• [ ] podcast_audio.wav exists and plays correctly
• [ ] timing.json has all sections with correct timestamps
• [ ] podcast_audio.srt encoding is UTF-8

After Step 10 (Render):

• [ ] output.mp4 resolution is 3840x2160
• [ ] Audio-video sync verified
• [ ] No black frames

Key Commands Reference

See CLAUDE.md for the full command reference (TTS, Remotion, FFmpeg, shorts generation).

User Preference System

Skill learns and applies preferences automatically. See references/troubleshooting.md for commands and learning details.

Storage Files

| File | Purpose |

|------|---------|

| user_prefs.json | Learned preferences (auto-created from template) |

| user_prefs.template.json | Default values |

| prefs_schema.json | JSON schema definition |

Priority

Final = merge(Root.tsx defaults < global < topic_patterns[type] < current instructions)

User Commands

| Command | Effect |

|---------|--------|

| "show preferences" | Show current preferences |

| "reset preferences" | Reset to defaults |

| "save as X default" | Save to topic_patterns |

Troubleshooting & Preferences

> Full reference: Read references/troubleshooting.md on errors, preference questions, or BGM options.