remotion

name	Remotion
description	Creates programmatic video with React via Remotion — compositions, sequences, and motion graphics rendered to MP4. All animation via useCurrentFrame() (no CSS animations); integrates LIFEOS_THEME and Art skill aesthetics; output staged to ~/Downloads/ for preview; rendering is CPU-intensive (run in background). Workflows: ContentToAnimation (animate existing content), GeneratedContentVideo (AI content to video / make a short). USE WHEN video, animation, motion graphics, video rendering, React video, render video, animate content, make a short, create animations, video overlay, explainer video, animated explainer, content to video, programmatic video. NOT FOR static images, diagrams, or illustrations (use Art), tight-cut filler removal from raw recordings (use Video), or audio-only podcast cleaning (use AudioEditor).
effort	medium

🚨 MANDATORY: Voice Notification (REQUIRED BEFORE ANY ACTION)

You MUST send this notification BEFORE doing anything else when this skill is invoked.

1. Send voice notification:

   curl -s -X POST http://localhost:31337/notify \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"message": "Running the WORKFLOWNAME workflow in the Remotion skill to ACTION"}' \
     > /dev/null 2>&1 &
   

2. Output text notification:

   Running the **WorkflowName** workflow in the **Remotion** skill to ACTION...
   

This is not optional. Execute this curl command immediately upon skill invocation.

Remotion

What It Does

Creates video programmatically with React. You describe the composition in code; Remotion renders it to MP4. Every frame is driven by useCurrentFrame() rather than CSS animation, so the output is deterministic and reproducible. It pulls LifeOS theme constants and Art-skill aesthetics for visual consistency, and stages output to ~/Downloads/ for preview first.

The Problem

Making a short explainer or motion-graphics clip the usual way means a video editor, a timeline, and a lot of manual keyframing — slow, hard to version, and impossible to regenerate when the content changes. If the script changes, you redo the edit by hand. Building video as code fixes that: the composition is a React component, animation is a function of the frame number, and re-rendering after an edit is one command. This skill is the code path for video, the way the Art skill is the code path for images.

How It Works

Define a composition as React, animate with useCurrentFrame(), render with bunx remotion render. Rendering is CPU-intensive, so it runs in the background. See the Quick Reference and Tools below for the render command, theme integration, and pattern files.

Customization

Before executing, check for user customizations at: ~/.claude/LIFEOS/USER/CUSTOMIZATIONS/SKILLS/Remotion/

Workflow Routing

Workflow	Trigger	File
ContentToAnimation	"animate this", "create animations for", "video overlay"	Workflows/ContentToAnimation.md
GeneratedContentVideo	"generate video", "AI video", "content to video", "make a short"	Workflows/GeneratedContentVideo.md

Quick Reference

• Theme: Always use LIFEOS_THEME from Tools/Theme.ts
• Art Integration: Load Art preferences before creating content
• Critical: NO CSS animations - use useCurrentFrame() only
• Output: Always to ~/Downloads/ first
• CLI: bunx always (never npx)

Render command:

bunx remotion render {composition-id} ~/Downloads/{name}.mp4

Full Documentation

• Art integration: ArtIntegration.md - theme constants, color mapping
• Common patterns: Patterns.md - code examples, presets
• Critical rules: CriticalRules.md - what NOT to do
• Detailed reference: Tools/Ref-*.md - 31 pattern files covering core Remotion + Lambda + ElevenLabs captions + AI pipeline

Tools

Tool	Purpose
Tools/Render.ts	Render, list compositions, create projects
Tools/Theme.ts	LifeOS theme constants derived from Art

Links

• Remotion Docs: https://remotion.dev/docs
• GitHub: https://github.com/remotion-dev/remotion

Gotchas

• React-based video — component patterns differ from web React. Remotion has specific composition, sequence, and timing APIs.
• Rendering is CPU-intensive. Use run_in_background: true for render commands.
• Output goes to ~/Downloads/ first for preview. Same as images.
• NOT for static images — use Art skill for illustrations, diagrams, thumbnails.

Examples

Example 1: Create animated explainer

User: "create a video showing how the Algorithm works"
→ Builds React composition with Remotion
→ Defines sequences, animations, timing
→ Renders to MP4 in background
→ Output to ~/Downloads/ for preview

Execution Log

After completing any workflow, append a single JSONL entry:

echo '{"ts":"'$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)'","skill":"Remotion","workflow":"WORKFLOW_USED","input":"8_WORD_SUMMARY","status":"ok|error","duration_s":SECONDS}' >> ~/.claude/LIFEOS/MEMORY/SKILLS/execution.jsonl

Replace WORKFLOW_USED with the workflow executed, 8_WORD_SUMMARY with a brief input description, and SECONDS with approximate wall-clock time. Log status: "error" if the workflow failed.