showtime documentation
showtime's guides live next to the skill, in
skills/showtime/references/, because your coding agent reads them while it works.
They are written for your agent first and for you second: each one opens with a "Read this when" line, so
you can tell in one sentence whether it is the page you need. This map puts them in running order.
Overture · Start here#
Three steps before Act I. Setup takes 2 to 6 minutes the first time, and the test video's commands about 2 more (measured on a 6-core Intel Mac), plus your agent's writing.
| STEP 1 Install it in your agent |
STEP 2 Your first video Ask for a 5-second test video, watch it render, read the delivery card. Make your first video → |
STEP 3 If something goes wrong Find the symptom, say the line, your agent runs the fix. Troubleshooting · Glossary |
Then choose your path below, and open an act when you want to know why. The map below is the whole programme at a glance; the tables under it link every guide.
Tip
You never have to read these to make a video: ask your agent in one sentence and it picks the right guide itself. Read them when you want to know why a video came out the way it did, change a default, or build a project by hand.
Written for people rather than for your agent:
| Page | Read it when |
|---|---|
| Your first video | you are new: a 5-second test video and what each step does |
| Studio, step by step | you want options first: one real run from concepts to the final film, a screenshot at each step |
| Edit your own footage | you have a clip to cut: the ums and pauses out, captions burned in, 9:16 and 16:9, one real run step by step |
| Task guides | you want a recipe: what to say, what your agent runs, what you get, how long it takes |
| What's new | you want each release's new features, one sentence each |
| Questions people ask | you want short answers: GPU, cost, agents, privacy, licences, disk, time, platforms, languages |
| Troubleshooting | something failed or looks wrong: find the symptom, what to say, the command your agent runs |
| Glossary | a word you don't know: EDL, ledger, critic, look signature, splice, quick and studio, quality and lean |
Choose your path#
What are you making? Each card opens the workflow guide your agent follows; the preview is an example made with it.
 A launch or promo video launch-video see it done: 01 10 17 |
 An explainer explainer see it done: 02 13 22 |
 A tutorial or product demo tutorial see it done: 04 11 21 |
 A reel, Short, TikTok or audiogram social-short see it done: 05 16 |
 A chart or data story data-story see it done: 07 12 |
 An edit of real footage footage-edit see it done: 06 14 |
 A trailer or teaser trailer see it done: 09 18 |
 A slideshow from photos slideshow see it done: 08 19 |
 A video for a pull request, release or changelog changelog-video see it done: 15 · a PR: showtime pr-video · in CI: the GitHub Action |
 A picture cut to a song music-video see it done: no example yet |
 Narration for an existing video voiceover-only see it done: no example yet |
 A video in another language localize see it done: 03 13 14 |
 A logo sting, lower thirds, transitions components see it done: 20 |
 A codebase explained, traced through real code repo-explainer see it done: no example yet |
 A paper or technical PDF explained paper-explainer see it done: no example yet |
 How a system works, as a figure that builds itself or one people poke diagram see it done: the demo · a live figure: export html --interactive |
 What your coding agent did in a session recap see it done: the demo |
 A failing browser test, for a bug report repro see it done: the demo |
| The inside of a real thing you filmed, in sync with its sound xray see it done: the X-ray gallery · for people: the guide |
Act I · Before the curtain#
| Guide | Read it when |
|---|---|
| showtime in your coding agent | you want the exact install for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Devin, OpenCode or another agent, and to know which were tested |
| onboarding | it is your first run, setup is missing, or you want to know what showtime needs and downloads |
| modes | you want the two separate settings: how much your agent asks before building (quick or studio) and how much it checks afterwards (quality or lean); and what the delivery card says |
| studio | you want options first: concepts, looks, beds, storyboard and animatic on local boards |
| boards | you are writing or changing a studio board (board.json) |
| crew | you want to know how the ten specialist sub-agents are used (their briefs) |
| looking | you want to know how showtime checks frames without filling your agent's context: showtime look, the reviewer brief, short command output, showtime guide |
| GitHub Action | you want a release or pull-request video made in CI, with no API key |
| harness-notes | you run showtime from another agent host, a script or CI |
| mcp | you use showtime's MCP server from another client, the plugin settings, the progress monitor |
| diagnosing | something came out wrong, or setup failed |
Act II · Story and craft#
| Guide | Read it when |
|---|---|
| story | before any plan: angle, hook, structure, lines, and the honesty rules; a video that stops and asks; a storyboard table from another tool (showtime new dom <dir> --from-storyboard <file>) |
| tones | choosing a tone, or turning "make it feel premium" into choices; a showreel or "go all out" brief (showtime new showreel) |
| pacing | holds, cut rhythm, beat sync, narration word budgets, durations |
| motion-craft | easing, timing, stagger and camera moves |
| typography | fonts, sizes, spacing and safe areas for type |
| color | palettes, contrast, grading footage, and the look signatures new projects start in: a named palette, type pair and motion, picked to differ from your recent videos (--look, showtime signature) |
| brand-kit | there is a brand, or a repo or site with a visual identity; launches start with showtime brand capture |
| reference | you want a video "like this one", or one that does not look like your last five (showtime reference, showtime history, look_repeat) |
| platforms | delivery specs, safe zones, posters, thumbnails, README loops, cut-downs and share copy |
Act III · Building the picture#
| Guide | Read it when |
|---|---|
| render | checking, snapping, previewing or rendering a project; speed, workers, rendering without a GPU |
| stage-api | writing a page (index.html + showtime.json) and its time contract; the shutter blur on fast moves (data-st-blur) |
| components | titles, captions, charts, frames, cursor, end card, logo stings and lower thirds; the WebGL looks (§7: fluted glass, tilt-shift, liquid metal, mesh gradient, god rays, marble, metaballs) |
| transitions | scene handoffs, CSS and WebGL |
| adopt | you already have a video written as code (a page with seek(t), draw(t), CSS animations or a Python frame script) and want checks, sound, qa and export without a rewrite; a Claude Design export (showtime adopt <export.zip>) |
| film-api | drawing a canvas film or tutorial with Film |
| series | several episodes that share one look, sound and pacing |
| manim | equations, proofs, graphs and grid transforms with Manim |
| html-export | a single-file interactive HTML video: player, chapters, keys, deep links, range links that loop a part, questions that pause and ask the viewer; link previews and GitHub Pages (--share-url, --folder); a living diagram as a live figure (--interactive) |
| debugging-renders | a render fails, flickers, shows black or frozen frames, or differs from the preview |
Act IV · Sound and voice#
| Guide | Read it when |
|---|---|
| audio | composing, effects, the local library, beats, the mix, mastering |
| music | choosing or composing music, and syncing it to picture |
| synth-score | writing music or sound design in code with Synth |
| sound-design | placing effects, balancing voice against music, loudness targets |
| voice | narration: voices, scripts, word timings, pronunciation, alignment |
Act V · Footage, capture and assets#
| Guide | Read it when |
|---|---|
| editing | editing real footage by transcript (the edit decision list and its rules); cards over a talking head and a word behind the speaker (§9); a long recording's best moments as short clips (§10) |
| captions | caption styles, grouping, sizes and safe zones |
| footage-tools | one footage tool: probe, scenes, reframe, cut out the speaker, denoise, stabilize, grade, views |
| capture | material from a repo, a running app, a website or a PDF |
| tutorial-recording | scripting and recording an app demo, with auto zoom |
| assets | fonts, icons, emoji, stock photos and video, cutouts, credits, contact sheets |
Finale · Proof it is done#
| Guide | Read it when |
|---|---|
| qa | the checklists, the showtime qa rules, the hearing pass (a voice under the music, quiet stretches, level jumps, an abrupt end), the phone check and the expect block |
| review | building a review pack, running the critic pass on every finished video (quality mode, the default), judging a new render against the best so far (review-pack --against, review-verdict), clearing every finding before delivery (review-respond), and notes on the finished video (showtime review open), on a spot, a box or a stretch of time |
| receipt | you want to know what a job took (rounds, renders, time, tokens, cost) and the format of receipt.md and receipt.json |
These guides are also a searchable site: faviovazquez.github.io/showtime/docs.
Backstage#
| Page | What it is |
|---|---|
| SKILL.md | the skill itself: what your agent reads first on every request |
| references/index.md | the same map in the agent's own words |
| CONTEXT.md | the house vocabulary for whoever writes showtime: one word per idea, and the words it avoids (the glossary is the reader's version) |
| .out-of-scope/ | what showtime deliberately does not do, and why |
| CONTRIBUTING.md | tests, release checks, how to send a change |
| CHANGELOG.md | what changed and why, so it also answers "where did X go?" (What's new is the short version) |
| showtime-examples | every example with its request, commands and review rounds, in its own repository |
| assets/brand/ | the Curtain Call brand: logo, colours, type, the sting and the sound logo |
| benchmarks/routing-eval/ | for contributors: the routing eval, one case per workflow guide (does SKILL.md send a request to the right guide?) |
showtime --help lists every command with examples; showtime <command> --help has the details.