video-steal

Video Steal

Someone's edit works and you want it on your own videos. This skill measures their edit, writes it down as a style, and proves it on one of your takes before you use it.

Output:

• video-agent/styles/<name>.md: the style, read by /video-edit <take> style <name>.
• video-agent/styles/<name>/: its stills, sound effects and stickers.
• video-agent/edits/<slug>-<name>/final.mp4: the test video.

Read references/learnings.md before you start. Each rule in it comes from a copy that got rejected.

How to run it

• Preflight: ffmpeg -version && yt-dlp --version. Missing: /video-setup tools.
• Talk in the creator's language. Say what you do in one line before each long step.
• <name>: the creator's handle in lowercase with dashes, unless the user names the style.
• Scratch files go in video-agent/.tmp/steal-<name>/ (W below).

1. Get the reel

• A local file: use it.
• A YouTube link: yt-dlp -o "W/reel.%(ext)s" "<url>".
• Instagram or TikTok: try yt-dlp first. If it is blocked (login wall), and Treg is set up (treg balance answers), treg catalog search "download an Instagram reel video file", then treg catalog get <id> for the price, then treg call <id> --query url=<url> and download the video URL it returns. Otherwise ask the user to save the video and give you the file.
• When you can, study 2 or 3 reels of the same format. One reel can be the exception.

2. Measure

Do all three passes. A style copied from the frames alone misses half of it: the sound and the rhythm.

Frames and cuts

ffmpeg -v error -y -i W/reel.mp4 -vf "fps=2,scale=270:480,tile=8x3:padding=4:color=black" W/sheet-%02d.jpg
ffmpeg -hide_banner -i W/reel.mp4 -vf "scdet=threshold=12" -an -f null - 2>&1 | grep -o "scd.time: [0-9.]*" | cut -d' ' -f2 > W/cuts.txt
ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration -of csv=p=0 W/reel.mp4

• Each sheet holds 24 tiles at 2 per second. Sheet N, tile i (from 0) shows second 12(N-1) + i/2.
• Seconds per shot = duration / (number of lines in cuts.txt + 1).

Read EVERY sheet and write down:

• Layouts: full camera, split screen (where the seam sits), flat color with text, cut-out person on a color, B-roll, screenshots.
• Captions, per layout: font feel (condensed, rounded, serif), case, weight, size, where they sit on the body, how a word appears, which word gets emphasised and how.
• Stickers and images: type, border, size, when they land (on the word that names them?), whether they stack.
• Hook (first 2 s), CTA (last 3 s), color grade (bright and flat, or contrasty and dark).

Save 6 to 10 key stills to video-agent/styles/<name>/:

ffmpeg -v error -y -ss <seconds> -i W/reel.mp4 -frames:v 1 video-agent/styles/<name>/t<seconds>.jpg

Sound

ffmpeg -v error -y -i W/reel.mp4 -lavfi "showspectrumpic=s=3000x500:legend=0:scale=log:stop=11000" W/spectrum.png

• The image is 3000 px wide, so a cut at t seconds sits at x = 3000 × t / duration. Read it next to cuts.txt.
• A bright thin vertical stroke high up = a click. Wide and low = a boom. A rising smear = a whoosh. A dark gap across the steady music band = the beat drops out.
• Zoom on one cut to see its hit: ffmpeg -v error -y -ss <cut - 1> -t 2 -i W/reel.mp4 -lavfi "showspectrumpic=s=1000x500:legend=0:scale=log:stop=11000" W/cut-<n>.png.
• Beat: count the regular low strokes over 10 s on the spectrogram (or tap along while it plays): strokes per 10 s × 6 = BPM.

Music level under the voice (optional, needs ELEVENLABS_API_KEY in video-agent/.env, uses a few credits, say so first):

set -a; . video-agent/.env; set +a
ffmpeg -v error -y -i W/reel.mp4 -vn -ac 1 -ar 44100 W/full.wav
curl -s -X POST https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/audio-isolation -H "xi-api-key: $ELEVENLABS_API_KEY" -F audio=@W/full.wav -o W/voice.mp3
ffmpeg -v error -y -i W/voice.mp3 -ac 1 -ar 44100 W/voice.wav
for f in full voice; do ffmpeg -v error -i W/$f.wav -af "asetnsamples=882,astats=metadata=1:reset=1,ametadata=print:key=lavfi.astats.Overall.RMS_level:file=-" -f null - | grep -o "RMS_level=.*" | cut -d= -f2 > W/rms-$f.txt; done
paste W/rms-voice.txt W/rms-full.txt | awk '$1<-40{print $2}' | sort -n | awk '{a[NR]=$1}END{print "music while the voice is silent:", a[int(NR/2)+1], "dB over", NR/50, "s"}'
awk '$1>-30' W/rms-voice.txt | sort -n | awk '{a[NR]=$1}END{print "voice while talking:", a[int(NR/2)+1], "dB"}'

• These commands measure the level every 20 ms. The music is the full mix in the moments the isolated voice is silent.
• Music under the voice = the voice level minus the music level.
• Under 1 s of silence (an edit with every pause cut) is too little to trust: judge it on the spectrogram.
• Never subtract the isolated voice from the mix: it is not in phase with the original, so the result comes out louder than the voice.
• Without a key, judge the level on the spectrogram.

Write down where the music starts and which event gets which sound: cut, sticker, zoom, impact.

Zooms

On the sheets, measure the face height as a share of the frame height on 10 tiles or so, and list the jumps in face size from one tile to the next:

• a jump at a cut = a change of framing between two shots
• a jump inside a shot = a punch-in
• a slow growth over a shot = a push

Write the range (e.g. face 12 to 25 % of the frame), the punch-ins per 10 s, and whether there is a push. These numbers are the ceiling for your copy.

3. Write the style

video-agent/styles/<name>.md, in the user's language, with the same sections as video-edit's style.md. Each line gives a value and the measurement behind it:

# Style: <name>

Copied from <link>, measured on <date>. Applied on top of video-edit's style.md: what is not here stays as there.

## Cuts
- hard cut every 1.4 s on average (35 cuts in 50 s); no fade, no transition
## Framing
- face 12 to 25 % of the frame; punch-in 1.1 at most, about every 4 s, held until the next cut; slow push 0.6 %/s
## Captions
- ...
## Stickers and images
- ...
## Sound
- boom bap beat ~90 BPM from the hook impact, 12 dB under the voice, drops out 0.3 s on punch-ins
- a dry high click on most cuts (sfx/cut.wav), a pop on each sticker (sfx/pop.wav)
## Grade
- ffmpeg: eq=contrast=1.08:saturation=0.9,vignette=PI/5,unsharp=5:5:0.4
## Left out
- the AI video clips: replaced by your own footage or a callout
## How video-edit applies it
- the components to add to the composition and the props they take

Sound effects (in video-agent/styles/<name>/sfx/):

• With an ElevenLabs key, generate 2 or 3 takes per sound and keep the one closest to the original on the spectrogram:

  curl -s -X POST https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/sound-generation -H "xi-api-key: $ELEVENLABS_API_KEY" -H "content-type: application/json" -d '{"text":"single dry short high click, tight transient, no reverb","duration_seconds":0.5}' -o video-agent/styles/<name>/sfx/cut-a.mp3

• Otherwise, use a royalty-free library.

Stickers:

1. Generate them with /codex-images. Use the user's REAL photos as the face reference, never a generated face. Ask for a flat #00FF00 background, no shadow, no text.
2. Key the background out to a transparent PNG:

   ffmpeg -v error -y -i sticker.png -vf "colorkey=0x00FF00:0.3:0.08,despill=type=green" -pix_fmt rgba sticker-cut.png

Logos: every app named on screen shows its real logo, never a letter in a circle.

4. Test it

1. Pick a 10 to 20 s take of the user from video-agent/takes/.
2. Run /video-edit <take> style <name>. It reads the style file and adds what it describes to the composition: stickers on the word that names them, sound effects on the cuts, the grade.
3. The slug is <take slug>-<name>.

5. Compare before showing

Put the original on top and the copy below, at the same seconds:

ffmpeg -v error -y -i W/reel.mp4 -i video-agent/edits/<slug>/final.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v]fps=1,scale=216:384,trim=end_frame=15,tile=15x1[a];[1:v]fps=1,scale=216:384,trim=end_frame=15,tile=15x1[b];[a][b]vstack" -frames:v 1 W/compare.jpg

Go tile by tile:

• type size and weight
• sticker and logo size (they fill the space like in the original)
• grade
• no fade where the original cuts hard
• captions off the mouth
• nothing upside down

Run the spectrogram on the copy too: the hits must land on the cuts, the beat must sit at the same level under the voice. Measure the face size on its sheets: no more zooms than the original, the face never bigger.

Fix every gap before showing. The user should never be the one to spot it.

6. Deliver

Open final.mp4, then tell the user in a few lines:

• what was measured (seconds per shot, BPM, music level, zooms)
• what was copied, and what was left out and why
• where the style lives

From now on, /video-edit <take> style <name> uses it. Each time the user rejects something, write it in the style file. When the lesson is general, add it to references/learnings.md.