website-to-video

name

website-to-video

description

Capture a general website/URL and turn it into a HyperFrames video (site tour, showcase, or social clip from the site's own visuals). Uses headless Chrome screenshots + brand assets. Use when intent is general — portfolio/blog/landing-page showcase or social clip from the site. NOT for: product/SaaS launch or promo (→ /product-launch-video, even from a URL); topic explainer with no site (→ /faceless-explainer); GitHub PR (→ /pr-to-video); adding captions to existing video (→ /embedded-captions); short unnarrated page-highlight motion graphic (→ /motion-graphics). Unclear launch-vs-general-site? Ask one question or start at /hyperframes.

media-use: Before sourcing audio/images, call /media-use to resolve BGM/SFX/images from the HeyGen catalog. Run --adopt first to register existing assets. See /media-use skill.

Website to HyperFrames

Capture a website, then produce a professional video from it.

Confirm the route before Step 0. This skill makes a video of / from a general site. If the user is really marketing / launching / promoting a product (even from this URL, even "promo for our site") → /product-launch-video. A topic explainer with no site → /faceless-explainer; a GitHub PR → /pr-to-video; re-cutting / recoloring / reordering an existing video file → out of scope. Routed here on a vague "make a video", or unsure launch-vs-general-site? Read /hyperframes first (full routing table + § What HyperFrames cannot do).

Users say things like:

• "Turn this website into a 15-second social clip for Instagram"
• "Make a 30-second site tour / showcase from https://..."
• "Capture our homepage and build a video from its own visuals"

The workflow has 7 steps. Each produces an artifact that gates the next. By default it's collaborative — gates marked 💬 stop and ask the user. If the user signals autonomous mode ("decide for me", "surprise me"), 💬 user-preference gates are skipped; see step-2-brief.md for how that propagates.

Autonomous mode is NOT "skip all gates." Auto mode covers user-preference questions (TTS provider, voice, color emphasis, beat count, music yes/no, captions yes/no — where the agent decides on the user's behalf). It does NOT cover quality-verification gates. The following remain non-skippable in auto mode:

• Asset Audit (Step 3) — viewing contact sheets and justifying USE/SKIP for each asset
• Per-beat HTML read (Step 5) — structured evidence block per beat
• DoD checklist (Step 6) — including animation-map, per-warning WCAG verification, audio/motion playback
• Honest disclosure section (Step 6) — "What I did NOT verify" must appear in your final summary

If you find yourself reasoning "auto mode says bias toward action, so I'll skip X" — and X is a verification gate, not a preference question — that reasoning is wrong. Bias toward action applies to deciding what to build, not to deciding whether to verify.

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Step 0: Capture & Understand the Brand

Read: references/step-0-capture.md

Capture the site, then read the extracted data to understand the brand and product — what it does, who it's for, what voice it speaks in, what mood it lives in. The captured assets are a brand toolkit for later, not the building blocks the video is made from.

Show sign-in status before the brief — run npx hyperframes auth status and relay its output verbatim (don't paraphrase or rewrite it). It reports whether voice/BGM will use HeyGen or local engines and, when not signed in, how to sign in. If not signed in, STOP and wait for the user to choose — sign in, or say "go"/"offline" to continue with local engines — before asking the brief or anything else. Treat it as a real decision point, not a passing note; don't fold the choice into the brief question, and don't write keys into a per-repo .env. (In autonomous mode, note the status and continue offline.) See ../media-use → Preflight for the canonical guidance.

Gate: Site summary printed — strategy-first (what the product does, who it's for, brand voice) before the asset / color / font inventory; sign-in status was shown (signed in, or continuing offline).

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Step 1: Brand Identity

Read: references/step-1-design.md

Write DESIGN.md — a brand cheat sheet covering the visual identity: colors, typography, component styles, layout principles. Use design-styles.json for exact computed values.

Speed option: For fast-pacing videos (billboard-per-beat), DESIGN.md can be a 50-line summary of colors + fonts + do's/don'ts — not a 300-line document. The sub-agent prompt in Step 5 pastes brand values directly, so DESIGN.md depth only matters for complex compositions.

Gate: DESIGN.md exists (any length) with at minimum: color palette, font choices, and do's/don'ts.

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Step 2: Strategy & Messaging

Read: references/step-2-brief.md, references/capabilities.md (scan the Table of Contents — deep-dive sections only as needed)

Align with the user on what the video must communicate before talking visuals or assets. Parse the user's prompt — they probably already gave you the video type and style. Ask only what's missing: the ONE thing this video must say, the narrative arc, and the audience.

Gate: Video type, duration, format, and — critically — the message and narrative arc are locked. Without those, Step 3 can't write a concept-first storyboard.

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Step 3: Storyboard + Script 💬

Read: references/step-3-storyboard.md

Write the storyboard concept-first: message → narrative arc → beats that serve the arc → techniques per beat → brand accents pass at the end. Then write the narration script to match. Present both to the user with a beat-by-beat summary. Iterate until they approve.

Gate: STORYBOARD.md + SCRIPT.md exist AND the user has approved the plan.

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Step 4: VO, Timing + Captions 💬

Read: references/step-4-vo.md

If Step 2 said no narration — ask about background music, then skip to Step 5. Otherwise: ask the user which TTS provider (HeyGen TTS, ElevenLabs, or Kokoro), generate audio, transcribe, map timestamps to beats. Then ask about captions.

Gate: Either (a) no narration was requested and storyboard has manual beat timings, or (b) narration.wav + transcript.json exist and beat timings updated with real durations.

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Step 5: Build Compositions

Read: The hyperframes skill (load it — every rule matters) Read: references/step-5-build.md

Build index.html and compositions following the architecture and pacing chosen in the storyboard (Step 3). Sub-agents run hyperframes lint and hyperframes snapshot on each beat before reporting back.

Gate: Every compositions/beat-N.html has been read top-to-bottom by the main agent against DESIGN.md and STORYBOARD.md. The per-beat checklist lives in step-5-build.md.

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Step 6: Validate & Deliver

Read: references/step-6-validate.md

Lint, validate, take snapshots scaled to video length (formula: max(beats × 3, ceil(duration_seconds / 2))), and review each one. Fix issues before delivering. Deliver the localhost Studio project URL — only render to MP4 on explicit user request. Surface that Studio URL only at handoff — it is the final, stable preview; the build-phase snapshots are headless, so do not pop a preview mid-build.

Deliver something you're proud of. Before handing off, ask yourself: would I post this on social media with my name on it? If not, fix what's wrong.

Gate: npx hyperframes lint and npx hyperframes validate pass with zero errors, and the final response includes the active Studio project URL.

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Quick Reference

Video Types

Typical constraints by video type — use as a starting point, not a formula. Beat count should follow from the content and the narration, not from a target range.

Type	Typical duration	Duration driver	Narration
Social ad (IG/TikTok)	10–15s	Platform limit	Optional
Product demo	30–60s	Script length	Full narration
Feature announcement	15–30s	Feature complexity	Full narration
Brand reel	20–45s	Music track	Optional, music focus
Launch teaser	10–20s	Hook energy	Minimal

Beat count is not in this table intentionally — it should come from the storyboard, not from "social ad = 3-4 beats." A social ad for a complex product might need 5 well-timed beats. A brand reel with one strong visual thesis might need 3.

Format

• Landscape: 1920x1080 (default)
• Portrait: 1080x1920 (Instagram Stories, TikTok)
• Square: 1080x1080 (Instagram feed)

Reference Files

File	When to read
step-0-capture.md	Step 0 — capture, understand the brand and product, write strategy-first site summary
step-1-design.md	Step 1 — write DESIGN.md brand cheat sheet (5 sections, 250-350 lines; 50-line fast-path for billboard-style social ads)
step-2-brief.md	Step 2 — align on message, narrative arc, audience with user
capabilities.md	Steps 2 & 5 — full inventory of what HyperFrames can do (24 sections). Scan the TOC during the brief, deep-dive specific sections during build
step-3-storyboard.md	Step 3 — storyboard + script (combined) with user review gate
step-4-vo.md	Step 4 — TTS provider choice, generation, timing
step-5-build.md	Step 5 — build index.html + compositions
step-6-validate.md	Step 6 — lint, validate, snapshots (scaled to video length), preview
techniques.md	Steps 3 & 5 — 13 primitive animation techniques with code patterns (adapt, don't copy-paste)
html-in-canvas-patterns.md	Step 5 — complete code patterns for HTML-in-Canvas effects (lives in the hyperframes skill)