User override during the audit runs made music and an end-tag MANDATORY
defaults for documentary-montage (narration stays optional). This commit
codifies those defaults into the pipeline manifest + director skills and
ships the Remotion end-tag component that the compose stage now
concatenates after the FFmpeg body.
Changes:
- pipeline_defs/documentary-montage.yaml: idea/edit/compose stages now
require music_plan and end_tag_plan to be present; opt-out requires
an explicit user note recorded in metadata.
- skills/pipelines/documentary-montage/idea-director.md: rewrote sections
4 (music MANDATORY), 5 (end-tag MANDATORY with shape
{text,palette,duration_seconds,render_engine:remotion,component:EndTag}),
6 (narration OPTIONAL), 7 (updated brief JSON shape), 8 (quality gate).
Common Pitfalls grew two entries covering silent-contract drift and
end-tag omission.
- skills/pipelines/documentary-montage/compose-director.md: section 4
now stops on music-contract violation; new section 4b documents the
two-engine flow (FFmpeg body -> npx remotion render EndTag -> ffmpeg
concat). Quality gate checks render_report.metadata.music_mixed and
end_tag_rendered.
- remotion-composer/src/components/EndTag.tsx (new): bold uppercase
typographic end-card with animated 0->100% underline draw-in and a
single left-to-right shimmer sweep. Supports cool_offwhite_on_black
and warm_ivory_on_black palettes. Renders at 1920x1080 @ 30fps.
- remotion-composer/src/Root.tsx: register EndTag as a first-class
composition (durationInFrames=165, 5.5s hold) so it can be rendered
standalone via the Remotion CLI with --props overrides.
New end-to-end pipeline for building thematic documentary montages from
a locally-indexed corpus of free stock footage (Pexels, Archive.org,
NASA). The agent builds a project-local corpus, CLIP-ranks candidates
per scene slot, edits with motion-aware arc logic, and composes via
ffmpeg. No paid APIs required for the full path.
Pipeline definition and director skills:
- pipeline_defs/documentary-montage.yaml: 5-stage manifest
(idea -> scene_plan -> assets -> edit -> compose)
- skills/pipelines/documentary-montage/: 6 director skills
(executive-producer + idea/scene/asset/edit/compose directors)
Corpus and retrieval infrastructure:
- tools/video/corpus_builder.py: multi-source stock fan-out with
resumable append-only corpus index
- tools/video/clip_search.py: CLIP ViT-B/32 retrieval —
rank_for_slot, find_similar_set, diversify, stats
- tools/video/stock_sources/: base + pexels + archive_org + nasa
adapters with a pluggable BaseStockSource contract
- lib/clip_embedder.py: CLIP wrapper
- lib/corpus.py: corpus schema, jsonl append/read, motion-score
caching
video_compose fix rolled in because any concat-based pipeline depends
on it:
- Replace ambiguous -to with -t duration (was double-trimming cuts)
- Force re-encode + normalize to 1920x1080 @ 30fps (was keyframe-
snapping with -c copy and breaking concat on mixed-source corpora)
- Add silent-audio anullsrc fallback for clips without an audio
stream
README: add Documentary Montage row to the pipeline table and bump
the pipeline count from 11 to 12.
- AGENT_GUIDE.md: add "never read source code" rule — skills are the
interface, not .py files
- animation.yaml: add Layer 2 skill-first guardrail in assets stage
- video-reference-analyst.md: Step 4b now mandates Layer 2 before Layer 3,
explicitly forbids reading implementation code
- CinematicRenderer: add TikTok-style CaptionOverlay and separate music
track support (narration + music as independent audio layers)
- cinematic/types.ts: add CinematicCaptionConfig and music prop types
Implements the 2026-04-02 transformation spec (Phases 1-8) and fixes all
critical bugs found during 5-pipeline E2E testing.
Governance & Decision Intelligence:
- Pipeline-specific stage order in checkpoint (replaces global STAGES list)
- Provider scoring engine (lib/scoring.py) with 7-dimension weighted ranking
- Decision log artifact enforced at proposal/idea stage across all 10 pipelines
- Delivery promise classifier prevents silent motion-to-still downgrades
- Structured shot language in scene_plan schema (camera, lens, lighting, DOF)
- Variation checker and slideshow risk scorer block samey output before render
- Creative intake, capability extension, and creative-intake meta skills
- Final self-review artifact with 5 mandatory checks before presenting output
- Source media review contract for user-supplied footage
Render & Theme System:
- Remotion AnimatedBackground now derives colors from playbook (no more hardcoded
dark blue fintech gradient on every video)
- video_compose builds custom ThemeConfig from playbook YAML colors/fonts —
custom playbooks flow through to Remotion automatically
- Explainer component wires theme to all child components (charts, cards, etc.)
- resolveAsset() handles absolute paths on Windows/Unix via file:// URIs
- RENDERER_FAMILY_MAP synced with actual Remotion compositions
Critical Bug Fixes:
- Windows npx subprocess: run_command() resolves .cmd wrappers via shutil.which()
- Silent renderer downgrade: Remotion failure now returns explicit error with
options instead of silently falling back to FFmpeg
- .env inline comment parsing strips trailing # comments from API keys
- concat_path UnboundLocalError in video_compose finally block
- audio_mixer and showcase_card capture=True kwarg bug
- Selector estimate_cost() calls fixed (_select_tool -> _select_best_tool)
- asset_manifest schema expanded with provider, license, subtype fields
- screen-demo subtitle_gen moved from required to optional tools
- Duration drift detection in post-render final review (>25% warns)
New tools: face_tracker, visual_qa, eye_enhance, auto_reframe, remotion_caption_burn, showcase_card, silence_cutter. Updated audio_mixer with segmented_music operation and subtitle_gen with ASR corrections. Registered TalkingHead composition in Root.tsx. Rewrote compose/edit/scene director skills for full enhancement chain, Remotion captions, multi-clip assembly, and visual QA. Gitignore cleanup: exclude test demo-props, downloaded music, and generated images.
Add anime_scene rendering engine (AnimeScene + ParticleOverlay components) with multi-image
crossfade, 9 camera motion types, 5 particle systems, and cinematic lighting overlays.
Fix critical Remotion durationInFrames footgun by passing sceneDurationSeconds from parent.
Add audio offset/loop support in Explainer for skipping quiet music intros.
New tools: audio_energy.py analyzes per-second loudness via ebur128 to find optimal music
offset and detect when looping is needed.
Update all 6 animation pipeline skills (proposal, scene, asset, compose, executive-producer,
remotion.md) with battle-tested image_animation workflow including tool availability scan,
FLUX multi-image generation, composition JSON format, pre-render validation, and post-render
self-review.
Add 3 demo compositions (Candyland, Mori no Seishin, Deep Ocean) and anime-ghibli style
playbook. Update README with 3 anime video showcases and animation prompts. Add Animation
Pipeline section to PROMPT_GALLERY.md.
calesthio