video-tool

Video Tool CLI

AI-powered video processing toolkit with ffmpeg operations, Whisper transcription, and content generation.

Installation Status

video-tool: !which video-tool > /dev/null && echo "INSTALLED" || echo "NOT INSTALLED - run installation below" uv: !which uv > /dev/null && echo "INSTALLED" || echo "NOT INSTALLED"

If video-tool is not installed, run the installation commands below before proceeding.

Installation

# Install uv first (if not installed)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Install video-tool
uv tool install git+https://github.com/alejandro-ao/video-tool-cli.git

Dependencies

• ffmpeg: Required for all video operations (brew install ffmpeg on macOS)
• yt-dlp: Required for video downloads (brew install yt-dlp on macOS)

API Keys Setup

Configure API keys (choose one method):

Option 1: Non-interactive (recommended for Claude Code)

video-tool config keys --set groq_api_key=YOUR_KEY
video-tool config keys --set openai_api_key=YOUR_KEY
# Multiple at once:
video-tool config keys --set groq_api_key=xxx --set openai_api_key=yyy

Option 2: Edit credentials file directly If users prefer not to share keys with Claude Code, they can edit directly:

# File: ~/.config/video-tool/credentials.yaml
openai_api_key: sk-xxx
groq_api_key: gsk_xxx
bunny_library_id: xxx
bunny_access_key: xxx
replicate_api_token: xxx

Option 3: Interactive setup

video-tool config keys

Required keys:

• groq_api_key - Transcription (Whisper)
• openai_api_key - Content generation (descriptions, timestamps)

Optional keys:

• bunny_library_id, bunny_access_key - Bunny.net CDN uploads
• replicate_api_token - Audio enhancement

video-tool config keys --show   # View configured keys (masked)
video-tool config keys --reset  # Clear all credentials

IMPORTANT: Handling Authentication Errors

When a command fails with "AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED" or "API key not configured":

1. DO NOT try to work around the issue by writing custom scripts
2. DO NOT try to call APIs directly
3. INSTEAD, offer the user two options using AskUserQuestion:

Option A: Provide key to Claude (convenient)

• User gives you the API key directly
• You run: video-tool config keys --set KEY_NAME=VALUE
• Faster, but the key is visible in the conversation

Option B: User configures privately (more secure)

• User runs the command themselves or edits the file directly
• Key never appears in the conversation with Claude
• Tell user to run: video-tool config keys (interactive)
• Or edit: ~/.config/video-tool/credentials.yaml

Example AskUserQuestion prompt: "This command requires a [Groq/OpenAI] API key. How would you like to configure it?"

• Option 1: "I'll provide the key" - convenient but key visible to Claude
• Option 2: "I'll configure it myself" - more private, key stays hidden from Claude

After user configures (either way), retry the original command.

Commands that require credentials:

• video-tool generate transcript → Requires Groq API key
• video-tool video timestamps -m transcript → Requires OpenAI API key (structured output)
• video-tool upload bunny-* → Requires Bunny.net credentials
• video-tool video enhance-audio → Requires Replicate API token
• video-tool upload x / video-tool upload twitter → Requires X OAuth credentials (run video-tool config x-auth)
• video-tool upload linkedin → Requires LinkedIn access token + author URN (run video-tool config keys or pass flags)

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Content Generation: CLI Commands vs Direct Generation

Some CLI commands use OpenAI to generate content. When Claude runs this skill, it's often better for Claude to generate content directly instead of calling another LLM.

Use CLI command (requires OpenAI API key):

• video timestamps -m transcript - Uses structured output for precise JSON

Generate directly as Claude (no OpenAI needed):

For these tasks, read the transcript/timestamps and generate content using the linked templates:

• Description: See templates/description.md
• SEO Keywords: See templates/seo-keywords.md
• LinkedIn/Twitter Posts: See templates/social-posts.md
• Context Cards: See templates/context-cards.md

Note on CLI commands

The CLI has commands like generate description, generate context-cards that use OpenAI. These exist for manual CLI usage. If user explicitly requests a CLI command, honor the request (it may require OpenAI key). Otherwise, generate content directly.

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Output Location

Before generating files (transcripts, descriptions, timestamps, etc.), if not especified before, ask the user where to save them using AskUserQuestion.

Example prompt: "Where should I save the output files?"

• Option 1: "Current directory" - save in . or ./output/
• Option 2: "Same folder as video" - save alongside the source video
• Option 3: "I'll specify a path" - user provides custom location

Default behavior if user doesn't specify: Ask rather than assuming temp directory.

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Long-Running Operations: Use tmux

For downloads and any potentially long-running video operation, run the command inside a named tmux session instead of blocking the agent shell. This includes YouTube/video downloads, uploads, silence removal, audio enhancement, transcription, and large renders/transcodes.

Recommended pattern:

# Start the job in the background
tmux new-session -d -s video_download 'video-tool video download -u "URL" -o "./output/video.mp4"'

# Check progress/log output
tmux capture-pane -pt video_download

# Reattach if needed
tmux attach -t video_download

# Clean up after completion
tmux kill-session -t video_download

Use descriptive session names like video_download, video_transcribe, video_upload, or video_process_<slug>. After launching the tmux job, monitor it with tmux capture-pane -pt <session> until it finishes, then verify the expected output file exists.

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YouTube Authentication

For YouTube uploads, run OAuth2 setup:

video-tool config youtube-auth

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Command Reference

Video Processing

Download Video

Download from YouTube or other supported sites.

video-tool video download -u "URL" -o ./output/my-video.mp4
video-tool video download -u "URL" -o ./output/%(title)s.%(ext)s

Option	Description
-u, --url	Video URL
-o, --output-path	Output file path (directory uses title template; default is ./output/%(title)s.%(ext)s)

Get Video Info

Get metadata: duration, resolution, codec, bitrate.

video-tool video info -i video.mp4

Remove Silence

Remove silent segments from video.

video-tool video silence-removal -i input.mp4 -o output.mp4 -t 1.0

Option	Description
-i, --input	Input video
-o, --output-path	Output path
-t, --threshold	Min silence duration to remove (default: 1.0s)

Trim Video

Cut from start and/or end of video.

video-tool video trim -i input.mp4 -o output.mp4 -s 00:00:10 -e 00:05:00

Option	Description
-s, --start	Start timestamp (HH:MM:SS, MM:SS, or seconds)
-e, --end	End timestamp
-g, --gpu	Use GPU acceleration

Extract Segment

Keep only a specific portion of video.

video-tool video extract-segment -i input.mp4 -o output.mp4 -s 00:01:00 -e 00:02:30

Cut Segment

Remove a middle portion from video.

video-tool video cut -i input.mp4 -o output.mp4 -f 00:01:00 -t 00:02:00

Option	Description
-f, --from	Start of segment to remove
-t, --to	End of segment to remove

Change Speed

Speed up or slow down video.

video-tool video speed -i input.mp4 -o output.mp4 -f 1.5

Option	Description
-f, --factor	Speed factor (0.25-4.0). 2.0=double, 0.5=half
-p, --preserve-pitch	Keep original audio pitch (default: yes)

Concatenate Videos

Join multiple videos into one.

video-tool video concat -i ./clips/ -o ./output/final.mp4 -f

Option	Description
-i, --input-dir	Directory containing videos
-o, --output-path	Output file path
-f, --fast-concat	Skip re-encoding (faster, requires same codec)

Audio Operations

Extract Audio

Extract audio track to MP3.

video-tool video extract-audio -i video.mp4 -o audio.mp3

Enhance Audio

Improve audio quality using Resemble AI (requires Replicate API token).

video-tool video enhance-audio -i input.mp4 -o enhanced.mp4
video-tool video enhance-audio -i input.mp4 -o denoised.mp4 -d  # denoise only

Replace Audio

Swap audio track in a video.

video-tool video replace-audio -v video.mp4 -a new_audio.mp3 -o output.mp4

Transcription & Timestamps

Generate Transcript

Create VTT captions using Groq Whisper (requires Groq API key).

video-tool generate transcript -i video.mp4 -o transcript.vtt

Generate Timestamps

Create chapter markers (requires OpenAI API key for transcript mode).

# From video clips directory
video-tool video timestamps -m clips -i ./clips/ -o timestamps.json

# From transcript
video-tool video timestamps -m transcript -i transcript.vtt -o timestamps.json -g medium

Option	Description
-m, --mode	clips or transcript
-g, --granularity	low, medium, high (transcript mode)
-n, --notes	Additional instructions for LLM

Uploads

YouTube Upload

Upload video as draft (requires OAuth2 auth via video-tool config youtube-auth).

video-tool upload youtube-video -i video.mp4 -t "Title" -d "Description" -p private
video-tool upload youtube-video -i video.mp4 --metadata-path metadata.json

Option	Description
-t, --title	Video title
-d, --description	Description text
--description-file	Read description from file
--tags	Comma-separated tags
--tags-file	Tags from file (one per line)
-c, --category	YouTube category ID (default: 27 Education)
-p, --privacy	private (draft) or unlisted only
--thumbnail	Thumbnail image path

YouTube Metadata Update

Update existing video metadata.

video-tool upload youtube-metadata -v VIDEO_ID --description-file description.md

YouTube Transcript Upload

Add captions to YouTube video.

video-tool upload youtube-transcript -v VIDEO_ID -t transcript.vtt -l en

Bunny.net Uploads

Upload to Bunny.net CDN (requires Bunny credentials via config keys).

video-tool upload bunny-video -v video.mp4
video-tool upload bunny-transcript -v VIDEO_ID -t transcript.vtt
video-tool upload bunny-chapters -v VIDEO_ID -c timestamps.json

X (Twitter) Post

Post a thread to X (Twitter) (requires X OAuth via video-tool config x-auth).

video-tool upload x --text "First post" --thread-item "Follow-up" --video-path video.mp4
video-tool upload twitter --text-file post.txt --thread-file thread.txt

Option	Description
--text / --text-file	First post text
--thread-item / --thread-file	Additional thread items (repeatable or --- delimiter)
--video-path / --video-url	Video file or URL to include
--output-dir	Output directory for metadata

LinkedIn Post

Publish a LinkedIn post (requires LinkedIn credentials via video-tool config keys).

video-tool upload linkedin --text-file post.md --video-path video.mp4

Option	Description
--text / --text-file	Post text
--video-path / --video-url	Video file or URL to include
--output-dir	Output directory for metadata
--access-token	Override access token
--author-urn	Override author URN

Configuration

video-tool config keys                        # Configure API keys (interactive)
video-tool config keys --set KEY=VALUE        # Set key non-interactively
video-tool config keys --show                 # View configured keys
video-tool config llm                         # Configure LLM settings and persistent links
video-tool config x-auth                      # Set up X OAuth credentials
video-tool config youtube-auth                # Set up YouTube OAuth2
video-tool config youtube-status              # Check YouTube credentials

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Command Templates for Skills

Common tasks that other skills can reference by name.

Transcribe Video

Generate VTT transcript from video/audio file.

video-tool generate transcript -i <INPUT_FILE> -o <OUTPUT_FILE>

Inputs:

• <INPUT_FILE>: Path to video or audio file
• <OUTPUT_FILE>: Path to output VTT file

Requirements: Groq API key

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Concatenate Videos

Join multiple video clips into single file.

video-tool video concat -i <INPUT_DIR> -o <OUTPUT_FILE> --fast-concat

Inputs:

• <INPUT_DIR>: Directory with numbered clips (01-.mp4, 02-.mp4, etc.)
• <OUTPUT_FILE>: Path to output video file
• --fast-concat: Skip reprocessing (optional, recommended for speed)

Note: Clips must be named with numeric prefixes for correct ordering.

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Generate Timestamps from Clips

Create chapter timestamps from clip filenames.

video-tool video timestamps --mode clips -i <INPUT_DIR> -o <OUTPUT_FILE>

Inputs:

• <INPUT_DIR>: Directory with numbered clips
• <OUTPUT_FILE>: Path to output JSON file

Output Format:

{
  "timestamps": [
    {"time": "00:00:00", "title": "Introduction"},
    {"time": "00:05:30", "title": "Main Content"}
  ]
}

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Upload to YouTube

Upload video with metadata to YouTube.

video-tool upload youtube-video \
  -i <VIDEO_FILE> \
  -t "<TITLE>" \
  --description-file <DESCRIPTION_FILE> \
  --tags-file <TAGS_FILE> \
  --privacy <PRIVACY>

Inputs:

• <VIDEO_FILE>: Path to video file
• <TITLE>: Video title (quoted)
• <DESCRIPTION_FILE>: Path to markdown description file
• <TAGS_FILE>: Path to text file with tags (one per line)
• <PRIVACY>: private, unlisted, or public

Requirements: YouTube OAuth2 authentication (video-tool config youtube-auth)

Output: JSON with video_id and url (save to youtube-upload.json for publish skill)

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Common Workflows

See workflows.md for detailed examples.