product-launch-video

First, keep this skill fresh — confirm with the user before running: npx hyperframes skills update product-launch-video. A fast no-op when everything is current; otherwise it refreshes this skill plus the core domain skills it depends on before you rely on them.

media-use: Before sourcing audio/images/logos, call /media-use to resolve BGM/SFX/images from the HeyGen catalog and brand logos from their official sources. Run --adopt first to register existing assets. See /media-use skill.

figma source: If the source is a figma.com URL, run /figma first — asset export, brand tokens, and components/storyboard reconstruction if needed — then build this workflow from its output. Don't drive Figma via raw MCP tools directly: that skips SVG sanitization, .media/manifest.jsonl provenance, and brand-token var() binding, so a later brand change can't propagate without a full re-import.

Product Launch to HyperFrames

Use this skill to capture a product, understand its brand, plan a launch video, and build it frame by frame in HyperFrames.

The front door is /hyperframes. You are the orchestrator. Run each step, verify its gate, and only then continue to the next step. This skill is for a product being marketed, launched, promoted, or revealed, including requests such as "promo for our site" when the purpose is promotional. A site tour / showcase ask stays here too: BRIEF.md carries the show-it-as-is intent, and the captured screens become the assets the video features. Any other intent, a bare "make a video", or any uncertainty → read /hyperframes first — the intent layer owns every route decision, and a fresh creation arriving here without BRIEF.md goes through it anyway (Setup's opening rule).

You are the orchestrator. Work in videos/<project>/. Run steps in order and pass each gate before continuing. User-gated steps are Step 0, Step 3, and Step 6. Read ../hyperframes-core/references/brief-contract.md before Step 0 — it defines the gate types and how BRIEF.md's flow/storyboard derive the mode that governs the Step 3/4/6 gates. Do every step yourself except Step 5, where you dispatch one sub-agent per frame. Do not put design or motion rules here; those live in the frame-worker sub-agent, this skill's local ../hyperframes-animation/rules/ + ../hyperframes-animation/blueprints/, and hyperframes-creative.

Workflow: Step 0 setup -> hyperframes.json; Step 1 capture -> capture/; Step 2 design system -> frame.md; Step 3 storyboard/script -> STORYBOARD.md and SCRIPT.md; Step 3.1 audio -> audio_meta.json; Step 4 visual design -> enriched STORYBOARD.md; Step 5 frames -> compositions/frames/NN-*.html and index.html; Step 6 final render -> renders/video.mp4.

---

Step 0: Setup

Goal: Enter with a confirmed brief, create the HyperFrames project, and make the brief durable.

The brief is confirmed by the intent layer, not by questions asked here. Opening rule, in order: (1) BRIEF.md exists → read it and ask nothing — the brief is settled, and its flow/storyboard derive the mode (brief contract § 1). (2) No BRIEF.md but the project exists (hyperframes.json / STORYBOARD.md on disk) → resume from the storyboard's frontmatter and the recorded preferences; never re-interrogate a half-built project. (3) Neither — a fresh creation request that arrived here directly → read /hyperframes and run its intent layer (references/intent-interview.md): it checks recipes and remembered defaults, conducts this route's questions (../hyperframes/references/routes/product-launch-video.md), and hands back the locked brief. Edit requests skip all of this — go do the edit.

Initialize only if hyperframes.json is missing. Name <project> from the brand or domain in kebab-case, such as acme-promo; never use workspace name or timestamp.

npx hyperframes init "videos/<project>" --non-interactive --example=blank --skill=product-launch-video — init checks the installed skills against the latest on GitHub and updates the global set if any are out of date.

After init, let <PROJECT_ROOT> be videos/<project> and run every subsequent relative-path command with that directory as its working directory. In the commands below, . means <PROJECT_ROOT>; never write .media, capture, or output files in the caller directory.

Write BRIEF.md immediately after init (never before — init refuses a non-empty directory): the intent layer's locked brief, shape per ../hyperframes-core/references/brief-format.md. Resolve <MEDIA_DIR> as the installed /media-use skill directory. Then record each preference-backed answer with node <MEDIA_DIR>/scripts/prefs.mjs record --hyperframes . (brief-format.md names the subset). If the intent layer adopted a recipe, run node <MEDIA_DIR>/scripts/recipe.mjs use --hyperframes . --name <name>; it copies its frame.md into the project (Step 2 is then skipped) and returns the skeletons Step 3 drafts from. A recipe fills answers, not approvals; the review gates still run.

Show sign-in status before proceeding past Setup — run npx hyperframes auth status and relay its output verbatim. It reports whether voice/BGM will use HeyGen or local engines and, when signed out, how to sign in. Note the exit code contract: auth status exits 1 when not signed in (and when the stored credential is rejected) — that non-zero exit is the normal signed-out state, not a command failure, so don't treat it as an error, don't retry it, and don't chain it with &&/set -e in a way that would abort the workflow. Apply one branch:

• Collaborative: wait for the user to sign in or explicitly choose offline / go.
• Autonomous: state the status and continue through the available local engines.

Do not silently omit a required capability when no offline provider exists; surface the blocker. Do not fold this decision into another question or write keys into a per-repo .env. Auth ownership and offline fallbacks: /media-use references/setup-providers.md § Providers.

Gate: hyperframes.json and BRIEF.md exist; the preference-backed answers were recorded (brief contract § 2); sign-in status was shown (signed in, or continuing offline).

---

Step 1: Capture assets

Goal: Collect the source material, brand signals, and usable assets for the video.

Classify the input and choose the path. Explicit URL -> capture it and use the site for narration and assets. Pasted script/brief -> save verbatim as user_script.txt; VO_MODE (verbatim or restructured) comes from BRIEF.md — the intent layer asks it when a script arrives (ask once here only if the brief somehow lacks it). Then resolve capture target: URL in text -> use it; brand name only -> WebSearch, confirm URL in one line, then crawl; no URL/site (or the brief says don't scrape) -> no-capture path.

Run capture with: npx hyperframes capture "<URL>" -o ./capture --json. Keep the default post-navigation budget unless the caller owns a smaller deadline; then pass a positive --capture-budget <milliseconds> that leaves time for downstream work. --timeout controls page navigation only. Use --skip-vision only when optional image captioning is intentionally disabled.

Inspect the command result and output directory immediately. A non-zero exit, JSON ok: false, or capture/BLOCKED.md is a hard stop for the capture path: report the recorded reason and do not consume partial screenshots, DOM, tokens, or assets. Do not manufacture a synthetic no-capture fallback after a failed URL capture. Continue through the no-capture path only when the original brief supplied the source material, or when the user explicitly switches to a provided screenshot or brief after the failure.

Warnings such as very little text content together with an empty asset catalog are not proof of a usable page. For a site tour or show-it-as-is brief, require trustworthy captured structure or a provided screenshot; if neither exists, stop. Do not invent or rebuild the page merely because the capture is unusable.

For a site tour or show-it-as-is brief, the captured page is the visual source of truth. Use the real screenshot instead of rebuilding the full website in HTML. If the shot needs internal movement, keep the screenshot as the base and overlay real captured assets at measured positions, or rebuild only the one component that moves. For a scroll shot, animate the viewport over capture/screenshots/full-page.png — the 1x plate of the whole document, pixel-exact for a 1920-wide viewport travelling down it. It is absent when the page was too tall to capture in one piece; fall back to the overlapping scroll-position shots in the same directory. Pushing in past 1:1 wants its own 2x capture of that region instead, since the plate has no headroom above 1x. Recreate the whole page only when the user explicitly asks for a stylized interpretation; an unusable capture alone is not authorization.

If GEMINI_API_KEY, GOOGLE_API_KEY, or an OpenRouter key exists, capture auto-captions assets into capture/extracted/asset-descriptions.md. This is not a review gate. Without a vision key, use DOM context and continue.

No-capture path: create capture/extracted/tokens.json, capture/extracted/visible-text.txt, capture/extracted/asset-descriptions.md, and capture/assets/ by hand. tokens.json should be { "title": "", "description": "", "colors": [], "fonts": [] }; fill title/description from the brief when possible. visible-text.txt contains the full brief or script. asset-descriptions.md should say no assets were captured unless the user gave asset notes.

Gate: capture JSON reported ok: true; capture/BLOCKED.md does not exist; capture/extracted/tokens.json, capture/extracted/visible-text.txt, capture/extracted/asset-descriptions.md, and capture/assets/ exist; and you can state the brand in one clear sentence. Treat asset-descriptions.md as the main asset inventory. If it is missing after real capture, stop and report capture incomplete. Warnings about a degraded optional phase are acceptable only when this structural gate still passes.

---

Step 2: Design System

Goal: Choose one shipped frame preset; a script turns it into this video's frame.md + caption skin.

When BRIEF.md names a style_preset — the user picked it by eye from the showcases at the intent layer — use it; the judgment call is yours only when the brief is silent. Then you make the one call — which preset: read ../hyperframes-creative/references/design-spec.md and pick the preset whose look best fits the brand and brief. Then run:

node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/build-frame.mjs --preset <name> --hyperframes .

The script does the rest deterministically: copies the preset's FRAME.md → frame.md and remixes it onto the brand tokens in capture/extracted/tokens.json (brand colors mapped onto the preset's color keys by role — ink, canvas, accents — keeping keys/structure/components; the preset's display + body fonts swapped for the brand's), copies the preset's caption skin to .hyperframes/caption-skin.html, and self-validates (exits 1 on a broken mapping). Proceed to the next step as soon as it exits 0 — no hand-editing of the spec.

tokens.json with no brand colors/fonts (e.g. no capture) → the script keeps the preset's own palette, a complete shippable design. If the brief names brand colors/fonts the capture missed, add them to capture/extracted/tokens.json before running (or use the user's design.md to populate it); only adjust frame.md by hand afterward if a mapping truly needs it.

Gate: build-frame.mjs exited 0 — frame.md exists from a named preset, and (when the preset ships one) .hyperframes/caption-skin.html exists as the caption skin source; the chosen preset was recorded as a preference (--key style_preset --workflow <this workflow>, brief contract § 2).

---

Step 3: Storyboard and Script

Goal: Turn the brief and captured material into an approved frame-by-frame story plan.

Read ../hyperframes-creative/references/story-spine.md (hook language, value-before-evidence, storyboard-as-proposal, source-traceable visuals), references/story-design.md, ../hyperframes-animation/blueprints-index.md, ../hyperframes-core/references/storyboard-format.md, and ../hyperframes-core/references/script-format.md. Use them to write STORYBOARD.md and, when narration is needed, SCRIPT.md. Set the frontmatter duration: from the brief's length — a rough expectation; assembly reports where the cut lands against it.

Use story-design.md for story blueprint, hook, persuasion logic, beats, VO_MODE, and asset choices. As a soft guide, consult the role→blueprint menu in ../hyperframes-animation/blueprints-index.md: for each beat, note a candidate blueprint id when one fits. Story truth still decides which beats exist — never force a beat to fit a blueprint, and never invent a beat just because a proven shape is available. Choose each visual frame's asset_candidates from capture/extracted/asset-descriptions.md (the canonical inventory) — don't browse raw capture/assets/. Do not ask the user to pick assets unless that inventory is missing or unusable. Use the exact required fields from the storyboard and script references.

After drafting, run the review loop's plan pass — ../hyperframes-core/references/review-loop.md § 1: open the board (don't ask whether to), present the plan as a proposal, and ask the two questions — approve or change, and sketches first (recommended) or skip. Feedback loops through chat or the board's comments file until approved. This is a checkpoint gate (brief contract § 1): in autonomous mode there is no board and nothing to ask — post the same summary as a heads-up and proceed; sketches collapse into the build, and the one preview question comes at Step 6.

Gate: STORYBOARD.md exists, every visual frame has asset_candidates, SCRIPT.md exists when narration is needed, and the user approved the frame-by-frame plan (autonomous: the summary was posted as a heads-up).

---

Step 3.1: Audio

Goal: Generate narration, word timings, music, and audio metadata from the approved script.

Start audio after Step 3 approval. Run it in the background, then continue to Step 4.

Choose the narration provider and voice from the user's ask before invoking. Pass the provider selected in Step 0 with --provider <provider> (or set HF_TTS_PROVIDER). If the request named a voice, gender, or tone, pick a matching voice id and pass it with --voice <id>. The pipeline default is otherwise Marcia (female) on HeyGen / am_michael on Kokoro — so a request like "a male voice" is silently ignored unless you pass the flag. Voice ids are provider-specific; resolve against whichever provider Step 0's sign-in status selected: HeyGen (signed in) via node <MEDIA_DIR>/audio/scripts/heygen-tts.mjs --list (or GET /v3/voices?engine=starfish); Kokoro (offline) via the voice table in <MEDIA_DIR>/audio/references/tts.md (prefixes am_/bm_ male, af_/bf_ female). When the user expressed no preference, fall back to the remembered voice (brief contract § 2) before the pipeline default, and say which one you used; omit --voice only when neither names one. When the user explicitly picked a voice this run, record it (prefs.mjs record --key voice).

node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/audio.mjs --script ./SCRIPT.md --storyboard ./STORYBOARD.md --hyperframes . --out ./audio_meta.json --provider <provider> --voice <voice-id> &

The audio script handles narration, word timings, BGM lookup from HeyGen's music library, and timing metadata. BGM mood comes from the storyboard's music: field; music: none turns BGM off. This uses the HeyGen Audio API for retrieval, not generation, and uses the same ~/.heygen credential as TTS. For provider details, read ../media-use/audio/references/tts.md.

If there is no narration and no SCRIPT.md, skip voice generation. BGM may still run if the storyboard has a music mood.

The canonical fully-silent marker: music: none in the STORYBOARD.md top YAML block and no SCRIPT.md. That combination marks the project silent — no narration, no BGM, no SFX. audio.mjs recognizes it and generates nothing (it removes any stale audio_meta.json; an absent audio_meta.json is what assemble treats as silent), so Step 3.1 is a clean skip. Use it when the user asks for a silent / music-free video — don't improvise other spellings.

Gate: audio job has started, or the project is marked silent (music: none + no SCRIPT.md).

---

Step 4: Frame Visual Design

Goal: Add the visual direction, layout intent, and motion choices to each storyboard frame.

Sketch the board first (collaborative only). The moment the plan is approved, run the sketch pass — ../hyperframes-core/references/review-loop.md § 2 (don't wait on Step 3.1; sketches don't use timings): wireframe every frame yourself, mark each built, pause for the one layout question when the board is full, and revise only the sketches named until the board is confirmed. Stand-ins: plain labeled blocks for the captured assets — the real files arrive with Step 5's workers. Only then write the visual design below onto the confirmed layouts. In autonomous mode, or when the user chose to skip sketches at Step 3, skip this pass — frames go straight from outline to animated at Step 5.

Edit STORYBOARD.md in place. Do not create another storyboard. Use frame.md as source of truth for color, type, layout feel, and style.

Read references/visual-design.md, ../hyperframes-animation/blueprints-index.md, references/motion-language.md, and ../hyperframes-animation/rules-index.md. Use visual-design.md for the method (the time-coded shot sequence, the inline Layout vocabulary, and the required ## Video direction block). Use ../hyperframes-animation/blueprints-index.md to pick each frame's shot shape. Use motion-language.md (the motion vocabulary + the motion doctrine) and ../hyperframes-animation/rules-index.md (valid rule names) for motion — do not invent motion names.

Search the live catalog before you design any named look. For every look, effect, treatment or transition the brief names — "CRT scanlines", "glitch", "film grain", "shimmer sweep", "confetti burst" — run npx hyperframes catalog --query "<the look, in plain English>" --json and read the top results BEFORE you write that look into STORYBOARD.md. The search needs nothing installed: no project, no prior add, no account. It ranks the whole hosted registry (~400 blocks and components) from any directory. A block that already does the job becomes the frame's focal — name it here, so Step 5's workers install and customize it instead of rebuilding it. Hand-author a look only after a search for it came back with nothing that fits.

For every visual frame, write a time-coded shot sequence into STORYBOARD.md per visual-design.md's method: pick the frame's blueprint (or compose), instantiate it with THIS product's content, and pace each Scene's reveal to the voiceover so the frame develops across its full duration instead of front-loading then freezing. State layout and motion inline per Scene (vocabularies in visual-design.md and motion-language.md). Add one video-wide ## Video direction block.

When an element visibly continues across a frame boundary, give both workers the same numerical handoff in STORYBOARD.md: add handoff_out: to the outgoing frame and a matching handoff_in: to the incoming frame. Name the element and its exact x/y position, scale, opacity, and motion direction/speed at the cut — state every field even when it does not change, because a constant is opacity: 1, not an omission. Omit the whole block only for a deliberate clean cut. The goal is simple: parallel workers must not invent two different versions of the same seam.

Do not change story, script, asset choices, asset_candidates, transition_in, or captured source material. Do not write HTML in this step.

Stage named assets after visual design is locked:

node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/stage-assets.mjs --storyboard ./STORYBOARD.md --hyperframes .

Gate: every visual frame has a time-coded shot sequence whose reveals are paced to the voiceover (no front-loading); ## Video direction exists; assets/ contains the named assets. Collaborative: the sketch board was confirmed.

---

Step 5: Build Frames

Goal: Build every storyboard frame as an HTML composition and assemble the playable video.

Wait for Step 3.1 audio to finish if audio was started. Then sync durations and fetch SFX; skip both if silent.

node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/audio.mjs sync-durations --audio-meta ./audio_meta.json --storyboard ./STORYBOARD.md

node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/audio.mjs fetch-sfx --storyboard ./STORYBOARD.md --hyperframes .

Duration sync is mechanical: real voice duration wins; silent frames keep estimates; never hand-edit synced durations.

Check the music against the final cut before assembly. A library track can match the requested mood but open on a quiet build that drains the first seconds of a short launch video. Compare the opening with later five-second sections; when a later section has a stronger, musically clean start, trim from there and keep a short fade-in plus a longer fade-out. If frame or narration timing changes, redo this check against the new final duration so the music never ends early or leaves silence at the tail.

Before dispatch, read ../hyperframes-core/references/subagent-dispatch.md. Build the per-frame packets and the worker role payload:

node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/frame-packets.mjs --project "$PROJECT_DIR" --storyboard "$PROJECT_DIR/STORYBOARD.md"

The builder writes one bounded packet per frame under .hyperframes/frame-packets/ (the frame's exact storyboard block + the blueprint body + every cited rule recipe, inlined) and _role.md (../hyperframes-core/references/frame-worker-core.md + this skill's sub-agents/frame-worker.md, concatenated verbatim — the complete worker role). Dispatch one sub-agent per frame, in parallel if possible; otherwise run workers in waves. Each worker gets exactly one frame: its prompt carries _role.md and that frame's packet — paste both in full, or hand the two file paths for the worker to read first (equivalent; the worker starts from exactly those two documents either way) — plus a dispatch context with PROJECT_DIR, frame_id, whether the frame has a confirmed sketch on disk (the worker dresses that layout rather than redrawing it — frame-worker core § When a confirmed sketch exists), canvas size, and caption status + keep-out band if captions are enabled.

Workers read only their packet and frame.md; they never open STORYBOARD.md or the skill documents (the packet inlines what was selected upstream). Each worker writes only compositions/frames/NN-*.html. Workers must never edit STORYBOARD.md.

Full-bleed backgrounds ride on a class="clip" layer, never the #root. A frame's ground (color field / gradient / grid) is its own full-duration background clip — a background set on the #root / data-composition-id element is clip-gated to the frame's window and is not a dependable ground, so dark content can land on the black host body and render invisible. The video's base ground is painted by the assembler from frame.md's canvas color onto the index #root. (Full rule + self-check: ../hyperframes-core/references/frame-worker-core.md.)

As each worker returns, the orchestrator marks that frame as animated in STORYBOARD.md.

After audio timings exist, build captions in the background and assemble the index:

node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/captions.mjs build --storyboard ./STORYBOARD.md --audio-meta ./audio_meta.json --hyperframes . --out ./caption_groups.json &

node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/assemble-index.mjs --storyboard ./STORYBOARD.md --hyperframes .

captions.mjs uses the project's .hyperframes/caption-skin.html (copied in Step 2) as the caption look, injecting brand tokens from frame.md; with no skin present it renders the built-in default pill. captions: skipped (<reason>) is valid. Continue without captions when explicitly skipped.

Gate: every frame is marked animated (collaborative: the sketch board was confirmed at Step 4), index.html exists, and captions are built or explicitly skipped.

---

Step 6: Finalize

Goal: Verify the assembled video, get user approval, and render the final MP4.

Inject transitions, run checks, pause for review, then render.

node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/transitions.mjs inject --storyboard ./STORYBOARD.md --hyperframes .

node <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/transitions.mjs verify --storyboard ./STORYBOARD.md --index ./index.html

npx hyperframes lint

npx hyperframes check

npx hyperframes snapshot --at <frame-midpoints-and-each-cut-minus-0.1s-and-plus-0.2s>

snapshot stitches the captured frames into one contact sheet (snapshots/contact-sheet.jpg). Inspect the midpoint frames for layout failures, then compare the two images around every cut. A continuing element must keep the promised position, scale, opacity, and direction; fix any visible pop before rendering.

If a command fails, surface stderr and stop — don't pile on recovery commands. Fix it yourself: the cheapest safe edit to compositions/frames/NN-*.html, then rerun the failed check.

After checks pass, pause for user review — the review loop's final look (../hyperframes-core/references/review-loop.md § 4): one question, on the Studio that has been open since Step 3 — render now, or what changes? (Autonomous: the one kept question, preview first or render.) Then deliver the MP4 with the contact sheet and the frame ids so revisions can target a single frame.

Preview: npx hyperframes preview --background

Render only after user approval (autonomous mode: after the preview-or-render question):

npx hyperframes render --skill=product-launch-video --quality high --output renders/video.mp4

Do not rerun lint, check, or snapshot after rendering unless the user asks.

Gate: lint and check passed and the snapshots were inspected before render; user approved at the review pause (autonomous: checks passed and the delivery includes the contact sheet); renders/video.mp4 exists. Final reply states MP4 path and final duration.

---

Quick Reference

Formats: landscape 1920x1080; portrait 1080x1920; square 1080x1080 — derived from the destination (brief contract § 2). Set the format once in the storyboard frontmatter.

Background scripts: the workflow ships only these scripts under scripts/: build-frame for adopting + brand-remixing a frame preset into frame.md (+ caption skin); audio for TTS, transcription, BGM, SFX, and duration syncing; captions; transitions for inject and verify; stage-assets for copying frame-named assets into assets/; and assemble-index. Everything else is handled by the hyperframes CLI.

The reusable, product-agnostic shot shapes live in ../hyperframes-animation/blueprints/ (indexed by ../hyperframes-animation/blueprints-index.md).