Agent-Media UGC Playbook

Agent-Media UGC Playbook

You're an agent (Claude, Cursor, custom) that needs to produce a finished UGC video on the agent-media vNext runtime. This playbook gives you the three orchestration patterns and the rules of thumb for picking between them.

Pick a pattern

Pattern	When to use	Calls	Total time	Total credits
A — One-shot composed skill	The user gave you a person description (or a portrait URL) AND a script. You don't need to show intermediate artifacts.	1 (make_ugc_video)	~7 min	~185–385
B — Step-by-step primitives	The user wants to approve each step (portrait, sheet, selfie) before moving on, OR you want different parameters at each stage.	4 (make_portrait → make_character_sheet → make_simple_selfie → make_subtitles)	~7–9 min	~185–385
C — Image-first	The user supplied a portrait image or R2 URL — skip portrait generation.	3 (make_character_sheet → make_simple_selfie → make_subtitles)	~6–8 min	~150–350

Pattern A — make_ugc_video (recommended default)

Single composed call. The server runs the whole pipeline inside one Temporal workflow and returns a skill_run_id you poll for per-step status.

POST https://api.agent-media.ai/v1/skills/make_ugc_video/run
Authorization: Bearer $AGENT_MEDIA_API_KEY

{
  "description": "a friendly young woman, soft daylight, candid framing",
  "character_description": "Maya, 27 years old",
  "script": "Okay this is wild, I tried the new flow and it actually works.",
  "duration": 5,
  "subtitles": true,
  "subtitles_style": "hormozi"
}

Poll with GET /v1/skills/runs/<skill_run_id> — the response surfaces per-step artifacts (portrait_url → character_sheet_url → video_url) as each primitive completes. Final video has subtitles burned in.

See skills/make-ugc-video/SKILL.md for the schema.

Step D — publish it (optional)

Once you have a video_url, you can post it straight to the user's TikTok / Instagram / X with the publish-to-social skill — POST /v1/social/publish (CLI agent-media social publish, MCP social_publish). The user connects each network once via OAuth (/v1/social/connect). See skills/publish-to-social/SKILL.md.

Pattern B — chain the four primitives

Use when the user wants tighter control (e.g. regenerate just the portrait, or pick a different character sheet description after seeing the portrait).

1. POST /v1/skills/make_portrait/run            { description, realism_target }
   → wait, get portrait_url

2. POST /v1/skills/make_character_sheet/run     { portrait_url, description }
   → wait, get character_sheet_url

3. POST /v1/skills/make_simple_selfie/run       { character_sheet_url, script, duration }
   → wait, get video_url

4. POST /v1/skills/make_subtitles/run           { video_url, style: "hormozi" }
   → wait, get subtitled video_url

Each step's run_id polls via GET /v1/primitives/runs/<run_id>. Show the user each artifact (portrait, sheet, raw video, subtitled video) and ask for approval before moving to the next step if interactivity matters.

Pattern C — image-first (user uploaded a portrait)

Skip step 1 of pattern B. The user's portrait must already live on R2 — either via the agent-media frontend upload, or via the portrait_image_base64 field on make_character_sheet which the API uploads for you.

Identity rules baked into every pattern

• No "selfie" in prompt vocabulary. Seedance treats "selfie" as "subject holds a phone with both hands". The primitive prompt builder substitutes "vertical TikTok-style close-up" / "talking-head close-up" automatically. Don't fight it.
• Script pacing: 2–4 words per second. 5s → 10–20 words, 10s → 20–40, 15s → 30–60. Outside this window = HTTP 400 at submit, no spend.
• Reference image URLs must be R2-hosted. SSRF guard rejects everything else. Use portrait_image_base64 on make_character_sheet if you only have raw bytes.
• Credits are deducted at submit. Refunded automatically on terminal failure (insufficient credits, content-policy reject, etc.).

Troubleshooting

• INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS — user is out. Surface the agent-media.ai billing page link.
• REFERENCE_URL_NOT_ALLOWED — you passed a non-R2 URL. Re-upload via portrait_image_base64 on make_character_sheet, or to a user gallery.
• Video has subject holding a phone — they used a pose hint mentioning "selfie" or "phone". Strip it or set pose: "".
• Step stuck in submitted — Temporal worker may be restarting. Wait 30s and re-poll; if still stuck after 5 min, the workflow is hung — contact agent-media support with the workflow_id.

See also

• reference/auth.md — first-time setup
• reference/pacing.md — 2–4 words/sec rule with examples
• reference/realism-rubric.md — the 9 realism props baked into every prompt