Plugin installs: Before setup or freshness commands, follow plugin execution rules when this skill is inside a HyperFrames plugin. Standalone installs keep the update instructions below.

General video

Run npx hyperframes usage --json at the start unless the workflow just read it, then check again at milestones such as after drafting and before rendering. Read the available windows and reset times. If usage is unknown, say so without guessing allowance; keep scope and workflow choices with the user.

Before relying on this workflow, run:

npx hyperframes skills update general-video

A successful no-op means the skill is current. Surface an update failure instead of continuing from memory.

1. Apply cross-cutting source adapters

• Media: For any audio, image, icon, logo, voice, grade, LUT, treatment/effect, caption, or media-operation need, load /media-use and follow ../media-use/references/resolve.md (resolve, adopt, reuse) and ../media-use/references/setup-providers.md (providers, auth). Vague footage feedback and named styles use ../media-use/references/media-treatments.md before editing; do not improvise supported media effects with CSS/SVG/opacity. Before the first authenticated provider action, run npx hyperframes auth status and relay its output verbatim. If signed out, apply the gate in ../hyperframes/references/brief-contract.md: collaborative waits for sign-in or an explicit offline choice; autonomous states the status and continues through an available offline provider. Surface a blocker when no offline provider can satisfy a required capability. Local adoption alone does not require an auth gate.
• Figma: If any input is a figma.com URL, run /figma first. Build from its exported assets, tokens, components, or storyboard frames. Do not use raw Figma connector calls because they skip SVG sanitization, media provenance, and brand-token binding.

These adapters do not change the workflow selected by /hyperframes.

2. Start from project state

Apply the first matching row; do not evaluate lower state rows:

For a new project, choose a kebab-case directory name from the brief and scaffold before writing the brief:

npx hyperframes init "videos/<project>" --non-interactive --example=blank --skill=general-video

Then write BRIEF.md at the project root using ../hyperframes/references/brief-format.md. In an existing project, the root is the directory containing hyperframes.json. Record only the confirmed preference-backed fields named by the brief format, using node <MEDIA_DIR>/scripts/prefs.mjs record --hyperframes <PROJECT_ROOT>; never record inferred defaults. Here <MEDIA_DIR> is the installed /media-use skill directory and <PROJECT_ROOT> is the directory containing hyperframes.json. If the intent layer adopted a recipe, apply it now with node <MEDIA_DIR>/scripts/recipe.mjs use --hyperframes <PROJECT_ROOT> --name <name> and do not ask again.

3. Interpret the run shape

Use only the canonical terms from ../hyperframes/references/brief-contract.md:

Do not invent synonyms for these states. An ongoing “just build it” signal is handled by the intent layer and arrives as flow: automation, storyboard: no.

• For flow: automation, choose the route and state it in one line in the first progress update.
• For a specific edit, make the edit without inventing a new route.

For a hard cut, trim, splice, or reorder of existing footage, duplicate the same video source into multiple clip elements. On each copy, set the source range with data-media-start plus data-duration, then set authored placement/order with data-start. Each video segment keeps its sound: the sound stays on the clip (data-has-audio="true"), so cutting the video cuts its sound. /hyperframes-core owns this temporal edit; use /hyperframes-keyframes only for visual-property animation such as zoom, punch, pan, crop, mask, or clip-path on an inner wrapper. Copy the full contracts from ../hyperframes-core/references/creator-editing-recipes.md.

Companion flow

When flow: companion:

• Read BRIEF.md and reconcile accepted ## Assets and ## Customizations with project artifacts. Complete accepted work that is still pending; leave completed work alone; do not offer an accepted capability again as if it were new.
• Arrive as the director, not the contractor. A user who chose companion chose involvement and quality; the honest response is the best version you can design, not the smallest one you can defend. The first plan is the ceiling treatment: the story arc (borrow the nearest genre lens — menu § Genre lenses), the design spec, each scene's motion treatment cited by name (§ 5's plan discipline), the transitions, the audio identity — music and sound marks, or deliberate silence — the user's material placed, and a designed open and close. Say what each layer adds in one line; flag the expensive ones (render time, sign-in, billing) as you name them. The user trims a treatment down; they should never have to assemble one approval by approval.
• The ceiling belongs to the concept, not the toolbox. Every layer must serve the brief's message — a treatment that would dress any video the same way is decoration. Craft rises to the ceiling; content never grows past what was asked (§ 6).
• Between checkpoints, ../hyperframes/references/capability-menu.md works two ways. As the trigger list: offer a relevant capability when the user mentions its input or the build reaches its need. As each pass's upgrade channel: a plan, sketch, or build checkpoint may carry one or two traced offers pointed at material the user is looking at ("scene 3's stat wants the count-up treatment"). Read it before offering; never dump the full catalog.
• After the user accepts a capability, produce its artifact and record the decision in the matching BRIEF.md body section immediately. Rewrite a frontmatter field and record the confirmed preference only when the user explicitly changes it.
• Keep the same storyboard, validation, final-preview, and render-approval gates. Companion changes who steers, not what quality requires.

4. Load required knowledge before each stage

These reads are mandatory when their condition matches:

Do not replace these reads with recollection. Progressive disclosure saves context only when the matching reference is actually loaded.

5. Execute the composition

Use this dependency order. Skip a stage only when its input is absent.

1. Plan. State the viewer arc, structure, rhythm, and duration driver. Use one file for a short single scene; use sub-compositions for three or more hard scene cuts or any reused scene. Read /hyperframes-creative → references/story-spine.md for narrated arcs, references/beat-direction.md for rhythm, and /hyperframes-core → references/composition-patterns.md for structure. For an open-ended multi-scene brief, expand the prompt through /hyperframes-creative → references/prompt-expansion.md. A multi-scene plan cites each scene's shape: a blueprint id from /hyperframes-animation → blueprints-index.md when one fits, or the named rules it composes from rules-index.md when none does — motion names come from those indexes, never invented. Story truth decides which scenes exist; the citation dresses them. Search the live catalog before you plan to build any named look yourself: for every look, effect, treatment or transition the brief names — "CRT scanlines", "glitch", "film grain", "shimmer sweep", "confetti burst" — run npx hyperframes catalog --query "<the look, in plain English>" --json and read the top results before the plan names how that look gets built. The search needs nothing installed: no project, no prior add, no account. It ranks the whole hosted registry (~400 blocks and components) from any directory, so it also applies to a look the user asks for mid-build. Blocks the plan names are installed at stage 3; hand-author a look only after a search for it came back with nothing that fits. A multi-scene plan is also recorded as the dispatch artifact: one ## Frame N block per scene in STORYBOARD.md — status: outline, a declared src:, the blueprint/rules citation, and the beat text — even when storyboard: no. The block is the dispatch unit; the storyboard sheet is only the review surface.

2. Review the plan when requested. For storyboard: yes, run the shared review loop over those blocks. For storyboard: no, continue without a plan pause or sketch sheet. When a plan pause happens anyway, fold the sub-agent delegation grant (needed by codex for step 4's dispatch) into that pause rather than stopping again later.

3. Resolve dependencies. Install registry blocks before parallel work. Stage user assets, adopt existing media, and resolve only what the brief requires. Start audio early when its timings drive duration.

4. Build scenes. For a short single-scene piece, implement the scene at its most visible moment before adding motion (the confirmed wireframe, when present, is that end state and must not be redrawn), then animate from its cited blueprint or rules — read the full recipe body (/hyperframes-animation → blueprints/<id>.md, rules/<id>.md) before writing motion.

   Dispatch pays for itself only at scale. Authoring packets and warming fresh worker contexts costs real minutes and tokens: a film of up to ~6 short scenes builds FASTER inline, in this context, one scene after another (measured: 5 short scenes ≈ 9 min inline vs ≈ 21 min packetized). Fan out only when the plan exceeds that — more scenes, or individually heavy ones — and then give each worker 2–3 scenes, not one, and spawn all workers in a single wave (a second wave nearly doubles the window). When dispatching:

   node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/frame-packets.mjs --project "$PROJECT_DIR" --storyboard "$PROJECT_DIR/STORYBOARD.md"

   The builder writes one bounded packet per scene under .hyperframes/frame-packets/ (the scene's exact storyboard block + the blueprint body + every cited rule recipe, inlined) and _role.md (../hyperframes/references/frame-worker-core.md + this skill's sub-agents/frame-worker.md, concatenated verbatim — the complete worker role). Dispatch the workers — 2–3 scene packets each, all in one wave (../hyperframes/references/subagent-dispatch.md); each worker's prompt carries _role.md and its packets — paste them in full, or hand the file paths for the worker to read first (equivalent either way) — plus a dispatch context with PROJECT_DIR, its frame_ids, and canvas size. WAIT on every scene's exact storyboard src (e.g. compositions/frames/<frame_id>.html) and the adjacent <frame_id>.motion.json sidecar. Workers read only their packets and the design truth file; they never open STORYBOARD.md or the skill documents. With no delegation channel, fall back serially: process one packet at a time in this context, still working from the packet alone.

5. Merge motion sidecars. Collect the workers' <frame_id>.motion.json files adjacent to each storyboard src and carry their durations and exit/entry vectors into assembly; where the doctrine chain (/motion-doctrine) is installed, translate them into the project ledger before stamping seams.

6. Assemble. Mount scenes, media, transitions, captions, and audio using the production loop. Real voice duration overrides estimates. When a music bed plays under any voice track, carve the bed before verifying: /hyperframes-audio → scripts/carve.mjs --comp index.html. A volume duck alone does not finish the mix.

7. Verify. Use npx hyperframes lint for fast feedback after the first HTML pass and structural changes. For the final gate, run npx hyperframes check; it reruns lint internally, so do not run a redundant standalone lint immediately before it. For sub-compositions, inspect midpoint snapshots. For multi-scene work, review the animation map.

8. Final approval. Once checks pass, open the final Studio preview — in autonomous mode too, before any render: opening it asks nothing. Ask whether to render or revise (autonomous: the one kept question). Render only after approval.

6. Gates that always apply

Keep scope exact

Build what the user asked for. A title card is not a title card plus three scenes, music, and captions. Offer additions before adding them.

Establish design before HTML

Resolve the design source in this order: frame.md → design.md → DESIGN.md. Treat the first file found as brand truth.

When no design spec exists, complete all four items before writing composition HTML:

1. Ground the visual identity in house-style.md and video-composition.md.
2. Write one sentence naming the concept angle for every non-trivial creation.
3. Choose an embeddable font pairing from /hyperframes-creative → references/typography.md; do not assume an unbundled display font exists in cloud rendering.
4. Define the focal element, edge anchors, supporting detail, and background treatment.

Match density to the requested format and message. Density examples are guidance for produced frames, not permission to invent claims, scenes, or a fixed number of elements.

For a named style or mood, read /hyperframes-creative → references/visual-styles.md. When the user needs to choose visually and no shipped preset fits, read /hyperframes-creative → references/design-picker.md and run the interactive design selection there.

Preserve the composition contract

Timed elements use class="clip"; the root and relevant ancestors are sized; each composition registers one paused, seek-safe timeline on window.__timelines; rendering is deterministic. Do not use render-time network fetches, clocks, or unseeded randomness.

Borrow workflows safely

When the piece resembles a shipped workflow, borrow its genre references as examples. First run npx hyperframes skills update <workflow-name>. Borrow its story shape and taste, not its private scripts, pipeline state, or directory contract. The generic build remains owned by this skill.

7. Done

A run is complete only when:

• requested scope is implemented;
• for flow: companion, the treatment is delivered, not just the scope: every scene's cited blueprint or rules realized, the audio identity present (or the silence chosen and said), the open and close designed rather than defaulted;
• npx hyperframes check passes, including its built-in lint stage;
• design adherence is reviewed against /hyperframes-creative → references/design-adherence.md when a design spec exists;
• contrast findings are resolved;
• sub-composition snapshots are inspected when applicable;
• an autonomous handoff includes an inspected contact or snapshot sheet; multi-scene sheets use scene midpoints;
• the handoff names the final preview or rendered artifact as applicable and reports the actual duration for a time-based deliverable;
• hyperframes-animation/scripts/animation-map.mjs is reviewed for multi-scene work;
• the user approves the final Studio preview before render;
• the rendered file is verified when a render was requested.

After final approval, offer once to freeze the run as a recipe, following ../hyperframes/references/review-loop.md § 4.