How I edit my Reels with AI.
The cheapest editor I found wanted $15 a video, and I had 90 videos to make. So I built an editor out of four free tools and let Claude run it. Here's exactly what they are, what each one does, and how to get them installed tonight — free.
The idea in one paragraph
Claude can't open CapCut or Premiere. But it can read a transcript, decide what to keep, write code and run commands. So instead of an editing app, you give it four tools it can drive — one that hears, one that draws, one that cuts, and one that glues them together. Then you just tell it what you want, like you'd brief a human editor.
The four tools (all free)
WhisperX
Listens to your video and writes down every word with its exact time. That's what lets Claude find your silences, stumbles and best takes without "hearing" anything.
Remotion
Makes graphics out of code — titles, captions, charts, animated text — and renders them as real video. You describe a graphic; Claude writes it.
FFmpeg
The workhorse. Every cut, crop, join, sound mix and export. It's what puts the picture and the sound back together into one file.
Python
Runs WhisperX and the small helper scripts that measure things — loudness, timings, frame counts. It just does its thing.
How an edit actually happens
- Transcribe. WhisperX writes down every word of every take, with timings.
- Rough cut. Claude reads the transcript, picks the best take of each line, and cuts silences and false starts.
- Graphics. For the lines that deserve one, Claude builds a Remotion graphic — and lands it on the exact word.
- Sound & captions. Clean up the voice, add a quiet music bed, burn in captions.
- Deliver. FFmpeg exports one file sized for Reels.
You stay the director: you say what you want, look at the result, and give notes.
Want Claude to do all five stages for you, the same way every time? The Build Spec turns them into five written skills Claude follows on every edit.
See the Build Spec →Get the tools installed (free)
You don't need to type commands. I made a short PDF that Claude reads and follows: it checks what you already have, installs what's missing (asking first), and proves each tool works by making a first test edit of your own clip.
Edit Videos With AI — Free Setup
4-page PDF · drag into Claude Code · Windows & Mac
Download the free PDFHow to use it:
- Open Claude Code (the Claude desktop app's Code tab, or
claudein a terminal) in an empty folder. It needs a paid Claude plan — the free chat can't install software. - Drag the PDF into the chat.
- Type: "Read this PDF and set up my AI video editor. Explain each step simply and ask me before you install anything."
Plan on 20–40 minutes, mostly downloads. About 10 GB of space. An NVIDIA graphics card makes transcription fast but isn't required.
Three things I learned the hard way
These cost me re-renders. Tell your Claude about them and you'll skip the pain.
That's 3 of the 20+ traps written into the Build Spec — plus the six automatic checks that catch problems before you ever press play.
Get the full spec $27What the free setup doesn't do
The free PDF gets the tools installed and proves they work together. What it doesn't give Claude is the editing knowledge — where to cut, what deserves a graphic, how big captions should be and where they're safe on a phone screen, how to check lip-sync, how to never put a fake number on screen. Without that, every edit starts from scratch and you end up giving the same notes again and again.
That's what the Build Spec is: the full system, written for Claude — the workspace, your brand file, five editing skills, the traps, the checks and the review loop. 19 pages, pay once, use it on every video.