Setup Guide

Edit videos with
Claude Code

By Dan Donovan, @askdandonovan

A code-based video editor that plugs into Claude Code. Tell it what to do in plain English: stitch clips, add subtitles, crop to vertical.

2 Steps
~5 min Setup time
1 Tool
Free tools Claude Code requires an Anthropic subscription

What is it?

Remotion is a code-based video editor. When you plug it into Claude Code, you can edit videos by describing what you want instead of using timeline software. It handles cropping, cuts, subtitles, and stitching clips together.

What you'll have after this
Plain English editing
Describe what you want, Claude does the editing
Automatic subtitles
Transcribed and added to your video
Clip stitching & cropping
Combine clips and trim to any size
Vertical format conversion
Convert any video to 9:16 for Reels and TikTok
Before you start: You'll need three things installed on your computer: Claude Code (we'll cover that in step 1), Node.js (download free from nodejs.org, get the LTS version), and FFmpeg for video processing (covered in step 2).
1

Install Claude Code

If you already have Claude Code installed, skip to step 2.

Claude Code is Anthropic's command-line tool. It runs in your terminal and can read, write, and reason about files on your computer. Learn more here.

Where's Terminal? On Mac, press Cmd + Space, type "Terminal", and hit Enter. On Windows, press the Start button, type "cmd", and hit Enter.

You'll also need Node.js installed. Download it free at nodejs.org (get the LTS version).

Open Terminal and paste this:

Terminal 
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | sh

It'll ask you to log in the first time. Sign in with your Anthropic account and you're set.

Claude Code requires an Anthropic subscription. You'll be prompted to log in the first time you use it.
2

Install Remotion

Open Terminal and paste this. This runs in your regular Terminal, not inside Claude Code. It sets up a new Remotion video project on your computer.

Terminal 
npm create video@latest

It will ask a few questions. Press Enter for each one to accept the defaults.

Navigate into your new project folder:

Terminal 
cd my-video

Replace "my-video" with whatever project name you chose.

Copy your video files (MP4 or MOV) into this project folder before starting Claude Code.

Install FFmpeg: this is required. FFmpeg is what actually processes the video files.

Mac: If you don't have Homebrew, visit brew.sh first, then run:

Terminal 
brew install ffmpeg

Windows (10/11):

Terminal 
winget install ffmpeg

Start Claude Code. Make sure you're in your project folder, then type claude and press Enter:

Terminal 
claude
That's it. You're now inside Claude Code and ready to edit videos by typing what you want.
?

What to try first

Once everything is installed, open Claude Code in your project folder and try one of these. Just type it in plain English:

Take screen-recording.mp4 and intro.mp4, stitch them together and crop to 9:16
Add subtitles to screen-recording.mp4 automatically
Cut the first 3 seconds and last 5 seconds from demo.mp4

Claude reads your files, writes the code, and renders the video. You describe the edit, it does the work.

Where's my finished video? Your rendered video will be saved in the out/ folder inside your project. Open Finder (Mac) or File Explorer (Windows) and navigate there to find it.
Something go wrong? Copy the error message and paste it back into Claude Code. It can usually fix the problem itself.
"The video in the reel was edited entirely by typing commands. No Premiere Pro, no Final Cut, no timeline."