Make a launch video from your repo

You have a product in a repository, maybe with a site or a running app. You want a 20-45 s launch or promo video in the product's own colours, type and words, showing real screens and real commands. This guide shows what to say and what your agent does.

Say this#

"Make a 30-second launch video for this repo, for X and LinkedIn."

Run it from the repository, or give its path or URL. If the app runs locally, say where ("it runs on localhost:3000"): the agent can capture the real UI.

What happens#

1. showtime job init acme-launch --platform x makes the job folder.
2. showtime brand capture . --job <job> --aspect 16:9,1:1 reads the repo (CSS variables, Tailwind, fonts, logo, README, CHANGELOG), serves and captures its site folder or your running app (--url), and writes <job>/brand/brand.json and brand.md: the palette with roles, the fonts, the wordmark, the copy word for word with where it came from, and screens per aspect. Nothing in the repo is executed.
3. Evidence: for a command-line tool, your agent runs each command it will show on a small sample and saves the output in <job>/work/evidence/. Every line on screen traces to a file.
4. A plan in one sentence ("This video tells ___ that ___") and 4-6 scenes, one message each.
5. showtime new launch <job>/project --duration 30 starts the project in the brand kit's look and fills the end card from it. With no brand to capture, your agent records why (showtime brand skip) and the project starts in a look signature instead: a curated palette, type pair and motion feel, picked away from your recent videos (showtime signature lists the 12).
6. showtime audio cuts --for launch --apply <job>/project picks a produced track and cuts the scenes to its phrases, with the swell on the end card.
7. showtime check <job>/project and showtime look <job>/project, at every aspect it delivers.
8. showtime render <job>/project --job <job>, then showtime qa <job>, then showtime review-pack <job> and a critic's review. Fixes, re-render, qa again.
9. Exports on request (showtime deliver exports <final> --targets x,linkedin), share copy, and the delivery card: files, length, loudness, qa, the review's verdict, what was looked at, and the cost.

What you get#

• final.mp4 (1920x1080, 30 fps), poster.jpg, share.txt (post copy), credits.txt when the music asks for credit, and exports/ with the platform versions.
• <job>/brand/: the brand kit, reusable for the next video.
• The delivery card in the chat. showtime receipt <job> --card prints it again.

How long it takes#

Measured for example 01 (20 s, 16:9) on a 6-core Intel Mac shared with about three other render jobs:

Example 10 (30 s with a voice-over) rendered its shipped final in 1 min 40 s on the same kind of machine. The time your agent spends planning and fixing is on top and depends on the agent; showtime receipt reports it per job.

Phrases that change it#

• "A 9:16 cut for Reels too" renders the same page re-laid at 9:16 (--size 9:16).
• "Use the cobalt look" picks a look signature; "keep the template's look" sets --look template.
• "Same style as this video" with a file: showtime reference <video> --job <job> first.
• "With a voice-over" adds a script, a voice and captions.
• "Lean" asks for a cheaper draft pass with fewer looks; a video you will publish still gets one critic round.

Limits#

• Claims come only from your repo, site or what you say. A number the README does not give is left out or marked for you to fill.
• A brand colour too weak for text is deepened for text only, and the agent says so.
• A private app is captured where it runs on your machine (--url http://localhost:<port>), not from the web.

The example#

Example 01 (a 20 s launch from a landing page and the real app UI) and example 10 (showtime's own launch, 16:9 and 1:1). The full workflow is launch-video.md.

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