Edit your videos with Claude
The full Remotion setup, the prompts I actually use, and what to do when it breaks. This is the exact workflow that took my edits from two hours in CapCut down to about ten minutes.
What this actually is
Remotion is a tool that makes videos out of code, which sounds like the least appealing sentence I could write, so stay with me. The point is that you never touch the code. You install it once, then you describe the edit you want in plain English and Claude writes the code for you and renders the video.
That difference matters because of what happens on revisions. In CapCut, changing your caption style on a finished video means going back into the timeline and redoing it. Here you say "make the captions bigger and move them up", and it rebuilds the whole video with that change.
Three things I use it for constantly:
- Cutting silence out of a talking-head video, which it does across the whole file at once
- Captions that spell things correctly, including product names that CapCut mangles every time
- Motion graphics and animated B-roll built to match what I'm saying, instead of me hunting for stock footage that sort of fits
Before you start
Check these three things, because every setup problem I've seen came from one of them.
- Node.js version 16 or higher is installed. Type
node -vin your terminal to check. If you get an error or nothing, install it from nodejs.org first. - On a Mac, you are on macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later. Older versions are not supported.
- On Linux, you need Libc 2.35 or newer plus a few extra packages. Alpine and nixOS will not work at all.
The setup
Open Claude Code
In the Claude desktop app, switch to the Code tab. If you are in the terminal instead, that works exactly the same way.
Paste this and press enter
This is the official install prompt from Remotion. You are pasting it as a message to Claude, not as a terminal command.
Ensure Node.js is installed. Install Remotion Skills: npx -y skills@latest add remotion-dev/skills -g -y Then use them to create a video.
Claude will check your setup, install the skills, and tell you when it's done. It may ask you to confirm a step or two, so say yes.
Or build a fresh project from the terminal
If you'd rather have a dedicated project folder, run these instead. This gives you a blank video project with Tailwind and the agent skills already wired in.
npx create-video@latest --yes --blank my-video cd my-video npm i npx remotion skills add npm run dev
The last line opens Remotion Studio in your browser, which is the visual editor where you can drag things around and see changes live.
Point it at your video and describe the edit
Start a new session, drag your video file in or give Claude the file path, and tell it what you want. Be specific about the outcome rather than the technique, so "remove every pause longer than half a second" works better than "make it snappier".
The first render takes a few minutes because it's setting things up. After that it's fast.
Ask for changes in plain English
This is the part that changed how I work. You don't reopen a timeline and you don't redo anything. You say what's wrong and it rebuilds the video with that fixed.
Prompts I actually use
Copy these and swap in your own details. They work because they name the outcome and give a constraint, which is what stops Claude guessing.
Cut every silent gap longer than 0.4 seconds out of this video, keep a small breath before each sentence starts so it doesn't sound rushed, and show me the total time you removed.
Add captions to this video, two or three words on screen at a time, positioned in the lower third, bold sans-serif with a subtle dark outline so they stay readable on light backgrounds. These names must be spelled exactly this way: Claude, Remotion, Attention Factory.
Between 0:12 and 0:19 I'm explaining how the revision loop works, so replace that section with an animated graphic that shows a prompt going in and a finished video coming out. Keep it flat and minimal, use my brand colours, and time it so it lands with the words.
The captions are too small and they're sitting too low on mobile, so make them about 30 percent bigger and move them up to sit just above the middle of the frame, and leave everything else exactly as it is.
When it breaks
What it costs
Free if you're an individual or a team of up to three people, and that free licence includes every feature and allows commercial use, so you can make money with the videos you produce.
Once your company hits four or more people you need the Company Licence, which starts at a $100 per month minimum. Full terms are on the Remotion site under licence and pricing, and if you're unsure which side of the line you fall on they run free 20 minute calls to sort it out.
That's the whole thing.
Make something ugly first. The first video you produce this way will be rough, and that's fine, because the point of the setup is that fixing it costs you one sentence instead of one afternoon.
If you get stuck, reply to the message that sent you here and tell me exactly where it stopped working.