Install the Claude Code skill

The Claude Code skill is the Reelfold engine packaged for Claude Code. Once it is installed, you talk to Claude about your footage (“cut the pauses and speed it up 1.1×”) and the skill tells Claude which workflow to run, with tested scripts and a shared library behind it. The skill is still called video-studio.

Requirements

Required

Claude Code
Python 3.10+
ffmpeg (brew install ffmpeg or apt install ffmpeg)

Optional, per workflow

You want	Install
Explainers and promo recuts (HyperFrames)	Node 18+ with `npx hyperframes`
HTML covers and slides	Chrome / Chromium, or Playwright
AI narration (OpenAI TTS)	`OPENAI_API_KEY`
Music catalog	The HeyGen CLI
Better beat tracking	`librosa`
HEIC photos	`pillow-heif` (macOS falls back to `sips`)
Your own cloned voice	`mlx-audio` and a Qwen3-TTS model

Install

Run these three lines:

git clone https://github.com/zyziyun/reelfold ~/.claude/skills/video-studio
~/.claude/skills/video-studio/install.sh
cp ~/.claude/skills/video-studio/persona.example.yaml ~/.claude/skills/video-studio/persona.local.yaml

The clone puts the skill where Claude Code looks for skills.
install.sh installs the Python dependencies and downloads fonts and models (see below). It is safe to run again; files that already exist are skipped.
persona.local.yaml holds your taste: default speeds, loudness, brand colours, title rules, hashtags, term fixes, fonts and which AI does each task. It is git-ignored, so your settings never end up in the repo. All options: persona.yaml options.

Start a new Claude Code session afterwards so it picks up the skill.

What install.sh downloads

Everything goes into one cache folder, ~/.cache/video-studio (set VSTUDIO_CACHE to move it):

What	Where	Licence
Noto Sans SC, Noto Serif SC, STIX Two Text, JetBrains Mono	`fonts/`	SIL OFL 1.1
MediaPipe face landmarker, selfie segmenter, selfie multiclass segmenter (used by retouch)	`models/`	Apache-2.0
Python packages from `requirements.txt`, plus `mlx-whisper` on Apple Silicon or `faster-whisper` elsewhere	your Python environment	various

At the end it warns you if ffmpeg or npx is missing. Set SKIP_PIP=1 to skip the Python packages and only fetch fonts and models.

The same cache also holds transcripts, TTS takes and other reusable results. The Mac app uses this folder too, so nothing is downloaded twice.

Whisper models and offline use

The first transcription downloads a Whisper model into the Hugging Face cache (~/.cache/huggingface/hub, or $HF_HOME/hub):

mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo for mlx-whisper (Apple Silicon)
large-v3-turbo (Systran/faster-whisper-large-v3-turbo) for faster-whisper

To use a model you already have, or to work on an offline machine, point the engine at it:

export VSTUDIO_WHISPER_MLX=/path/to/whisper-large-v3-turbo-mlx    # MLX folder (config.json + weights) or an HF repo id
export VSTUDIO_WHISPER_FW=/path/to/faster-whisper-large-v3-turbo  # CTranslate2 folder, or a size name such as small
export HF_HUB_OFFLINE=1                                           # never touch the network

The transcription backend is chosen automatically: mlx-whisper, else faster-whisper, else OpenAI whisper-1 when OPENAI_API_KEY is set.

Choose your AI

Every AI step (planning segments, proofreading captions, the glossary, post copy) can run on your own logged-in Claude Code or Codex CLI with no API key, on an API key, or on a local model. Set it in persona.local.yaml:

llm:
  default: {provider: claude-code}

Routing per task, fallbacks and costs: AI providers.

Verify the install

See which AI providers, transcription and TTS engines this machine has (nothing is sent):

cd ~/.claude/skills/video-studio/lib && python3 -m vstudio.llm providers

Optionally run the test suite on synthetic media (needs pytest; no network):

cd ~/.claude/skills/video-studio && python3 -m pytest tests -q

Moving from the old repository URL

If you cloned the skill when it was published as video-studio, point it at the new repository. The folder name, the skill name and the vstudio package stay the same:

git -C ~/.claude/skills/video-studio remote set-url origin https://github.com/zyziyun/reelfold

Older builds wrote part of the cache to ~/.cache/vstudio. It is still read but no longer written; delete it once you no longer need it.

Update

git -C ~/.claude/skills/video-studio pull
~/.claude/skills/video-studio/install.sh

Re-running install.sh picks up new Python dependencies and any new fonts or models. Your persona.local.yaml is not touched.