Rewrites the standalone `hyperframes` skill (the main authoring
skill used by every hyperframes user, not just the
website-to-hyperframes pipeline) to remove prescriptive lookup
tables that drove monoculture output, restore tone, and bundle
24 named text animation effects directly into the skill so
agents don't need a separate install.
This is a +9951/-567 change touching 61 files in `skills/hyperframes/`.
It deserves its own review separate from the capture pipeline and
the website-to-hyperframes pipeline because it affects every
hyperframes user — not just the website-to-video flow.
**Prescriptive tables removed / restructured**
External rater feedback across two rounds identified six lookup
tables agents were pasting wholesale as recipes:
- `visual-styles.md` YAML blocks — completely replaced. Old version
had 8 styles with full YAML token blocks (colors / typography /
motion / transition names). Agents copy-pasted. New version
renames to actual design traditions (Swiss / Late-Modernist
Editorial / Punk / Maximalist / Computational / Humanist /
Vernacular / Cinematic) and replaces YAML with prose: "what it
teaches / where it resonates / pitfalls when borrowing." No
lookup table.
- `motion-principles.md` — complete rewrite. Old version opened
every section with "You know these rules but violate them. Stop."
/ "You will try to use 14px. Don't." New version: "Common defaults
that produce monoculture" framing. All load-bearing GSAP rules
preserved verbatim (those are correct and critical).
- `beat-direction.md` rhythm table — removed. Replaced with
questions that derive rhythm from brand + storyboard. Verb table
regrouped by physical character (Impact / Directional / Reveals /
Organic / Mechanical) without energy labels.
- `transitions.md` Energy → Transition table + Mood → Type table —
removed named transitions, replaced with motion-quality
descriptions (Soft/organic, Directional/purposeful,
Percussive/instant). Mixing documented: CSS crossfade + shader
in the same HyperShader composition (verified working).
- `dynamic-techniques.md` energy table — restructured with
explanatory principles (highlight amplitude, exit style, cycle
variation) before showing the table as calibration reference.
- `techniques.md` "When to Use What" table — deleted. Replaced
with "choose techniques based on beat concept, not video genre."
- `typography.md` — "Guardrails / You know these rules but violate
them" → "Defaults to watch for." Banned fonts gain a caveat:
if the brand actually uses one of these fonts, use it.
- `video-composition.md` — fixed density contradiction
("8–10 visual elements" removed; sparse beats are intentional).
**Text-effects bundle (new)**
24 named text-animation effects shipped as paired specs:
- `assets/text-effects/effects/<id>.json` — GSAP-specific recipe
agents can paste verbatim
- `assets/text-effects/specs/<id>.json` — portable motion contract
(engine-agnostic, so the same effect can be re-implemented in any
animation library)
Catalog at `references/text-effects.md`. Storyboards reference effects
by name (typewriter, kinetic-center-build, shimmer-sweep, …) instead
of saying "fades in," which produced inconsistent typography across
beats.
Effects organized by target:
- Per-character (7): soft-blur-in, per-character-rise, typewriter,
bottom-up-letters, top-down-letters, stagger-from-{center,edges}
- Per-word (8): per-word-crossfade, spring-scale-in, shared-axis-y,
blur-out-up, kinetic-center-build, short-slide-{right,down},
depth-parallax-words
- Per-line (2): mask-reveal-up, line-by-line-slide
- Whole element (7): micro-scale-fade, shimmer-sweep, fade-through,
shared-axis-{x,z}, scale-down-fade, focus-blur-resolve
Sources adapted from `pixel-point/animate-text`; copied into the
repo so users don't need a separate install.
**Misc cleanups**
- `house-style.md` — light/dark prescription removed; defer to brand.
- `prompt-expansion.md` — `design.md` → `DESIGN.md` casing fixed.
- `html-in-canvas-patterns.md` — Three.js 0.147.0 (legacy
`examples/js/`) → 0.181.2 (`examples/jsm/` ESM imports);
`Math.random()` in the shatter example → mulberry32 seeded PRNG
so output is deterministic.
**.gitignore + CLAUDE.md**
- `.gitignore` catches per-brand video project directories agents
leave at the repo root (`huly-*/`, `raycast-*/`, `*-demo-*/`,
`test-runs/`, `test-outputs/`) plus the `videos/` folder
conventions.
- `CLAUDE.md` documents the local CLI for `capture` + `snapshot`
(since the published `npx hyperframes` doesn't yet include the
capture pipeline improvements from this stack) and the local
shader-transitions build copy convention.
Write HTML. Render video. Built for agents.
Hyperframes is an open-source video rendering framework that lets you create, preview, and render HTML-based video compositions — with first-class support for AI agents.
Quick Start
Option 1: With an AI coding agent (recommended)
Install the HyperFrames skills, then describe the video you want:
npx skills add heygen-com/hyperframes
This teaches your agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Codex) how to write correct compositions, GSAP timelines, Tailwind v4 browser-runtime styles, and first-party adapter animations. In Claude Code, the skills register as slash commands — invoke /hyperframes to author compositions, /hyperframes-cli for the dev-loop commands (init, lint, preview, render), /hyperframes-media for asset preprocessing (TTS, transcription, background removal), /tailwind for init --tailwind projects, /gsap for timeline animation help, or the adapter skills (/animejs, /css-animations, /lottie, /three, /waapi) when a composition uses those runtimes.
For Claude Design, open docs/guides/claude-design-hyperframes.md on GitHub and click the download button (↓) to save it, then attach the file to your Claude Design chat. It produces a valid first draft; refine in any AI coding agent. See the Claude Design guide.
For Codex specifically, the same skills are also exposed as an OpenAI Codex plugin — sparse-install just the plugin surface:
codex plugin marketplace add heygen-com/hyperframes --sparse .codex-plugin --sparse skills --sparse assets
For Claude Code, the repo also ships a Claude Code plugin manifest: test it locally with claude --plugin-dir .. The manifest intentionally omits skills because Claude Code auto-discovers the root skills/ directory by convention, and for marketplace submission use the title HyperFrames by HeyGen plus the black/white icon assets at assets/claude-code-icon-dark.svg and assets/claude-code-icon-light.svg for the two theme slots.
For Cursor, the same skills are packaged as a Cursor plugin — install from the Cursor Marketplace, or sideload by cloning this repo and pointing Settings → Plugins → Load unpacked at the repo root.
Try it: example prompts
Copy any of these into your agent to get started. The /hyperframes prefix loads the skill context explicitly so you get correct output the first time.
Cold start — describe what you want:
Using
/hyperframes, create a 10-second product intro with a fade-in title, a background video, and background music.
Warm start — turn existing context into a video:
Take a look at this GitHub repo https://github.com/heygen-com/hyperframes and explain its uses and architecture to me using
/hyperframes.
Summarize the attached PDF into a 45-second pitch video using
/hyperframes.
Turn this CSV into an animated bar chart race using
/hyperframes.
Format-specific:
Make a 9:16 TikTok-style hook video about [topic] using
/hyperframes, with bouncy captions synced to a TTS narration.
Iterate — talk to the agent like a video editor:
Make the title 2x bigger, swap to dark mode, and add a fade-out at the end.
Add a lower third at 0:03 with my name and title.
The agent handles scaffolding, animation, and rendering. See the prompting guide for more patterns.
Option 2: Start a project manually
npx hyperframes init my-video
cd my-video
npx hyperframes preview # preview in browser (live reload)
npx hyperframes render # render to MP4
hyperframes init installs skills automatically, so you can hand off to your AI agent at any point.
Requirements: Node.js >= 22, FFmpeg
Why Hyperframes?
- HTML-native — compositions are HTML files with data attributes. No React, no proprietary DSL.
- AI-first — agents already speak HTML. The CLI is non-interactive by default, designed for agent-driven workflows.
- Deterministic rendering — same input = identical output. Built for automated pipelines.
- Frame Adapter pattern — bring your own animation runtime (GSAP, Lottie, CSS, Three.js).
Hyperframes vs Remotion
Hyperframes is inspired by Remotion — we used Remotion at HeyGen in production, learned a ton from it, and kept attribution comments in the source for the patterns it pioneered (Chrome launch flags, image2pipe → FFmpeg streaming, frame buffering). Both tools drive headless Chrome and both are deterministic. They differ on one decision: what the primary author writes. Remotion's bet is React components; Hyperframes' bet is HTML.
| Hyperframes | Remotion | |
|---|---|---|
| Authoring | HTML + CSS + GSAP | React components (TSX) |
| Build step | None; index.html plays as-is |
Required (bundler) |
| Library-clock animations (GSAP, Anime.js, Motion One) | Seekable, frame-accurate | Plays at wall-clock during render |
| Arbitrary HTML / CSS passthrough | Paste and animate | Rewrite as JSX |
| Distributed rendering | Single-machine today | Lambda, production-ready |
Licensing: fully open source vs source-available
Hyperframes is completely open source under Apache 2.0 — an OSI-approved license. Use it commercially at any scale, with no per-render fees, no seat caps, no company-size thresholds.
Remotion is source-available, not open source. The code is on GitHub under a custom Remotion License that requires a paid company license above small-team thresholds. It's a great product with a real team behind it — but if open-source licensing matters to you (OSI compliance, redistribution rights, no per-use fees), that's a first-order decision point.
Full write-up with benchmarks, an honest list of where each tool wins, and a GSAP side-by-side: Hyperframes vs Remotion guide.
How It Works
Define your video as HTML with data attributes:
<div id="stage" data-composition-id="my-video" data-start="0" data-width="1920" data-height="1080">
<video
id="clip-1"
data-start="0"
data-duration="5"
data-track-index="0"
src="intro.mp4"
muted
playsinline
></video>
<img
id="overlay"
class="clip"
data-start="2"
data-duration="3"
data-track-index="1"
src="logo.png"
/>
<audio
id="bg-music"
data-start="0"
data-duration="9"
data-track-index="2"
data-volume="0.5"
src="music.wav"
></audio>
</div>
Preview instantly in the browser. Render to MP4 locally or in Docker.
Catalog
50+ ready-to-use blocks and components — social overlays, shader transitions, data visualizations, and cinematic effects:
npx hyperframes add flash-through-white # shader transition
npx hyperframes add instagram-follow # social overlay
npx hyperframes add data-chart # animated chart
Browse the full catalog at hyperframes.heygen.com/catalog.
Documentation
Full documentation at hyperframes.heygen.com/introduction — Quickstart | Guides | API Reference | Catalog
Packages
| Package | Description |
|---|---|
hyperframes |
CLI — create, preview, lint, and render compositions |
@hyperframes/core |
Types, parsers, generators, linter, runtime, frame adapters |
@hyperframes/engine |
Seekable page-to-video capture engine (Puppeteer + FFmpeg) |
@hyperframes/producer |
Full rendering pipeline (capture + encode + audio mix) |
@hyperframes/studio |
Browser-based composition editor UI |
@hyperframes/player |
Embeddable <hyperframes-player> web component |
@hyperframes/shader-transitions |
WebGL shader transitions for compositions |
Skills
HyperFrames ships skills that teach AI agents framework-specific patterns that generic docs don't cover.
npx skills add heygen-com/hyperframes
| Skill | What it teaches |
|---|---|
hyperframes |
HTML composition authoring, captions, TTS, audio-reactive animation, transitions |
hyperframes-cli |
Dev-loop CLI: init, lint, inspect, preview, render, doctor |
hyperframes-media |
Asset preprocessing: tts (Kokoro), transcribe (Whisper), remove-background (u2net) — voice/model/codec selection |
hyperframes-registry |
Block and component installation via hyperframes add |
website-to-hyperframes |
Capture a URL and turn it into a video — full website-to-video pipeline |
remotion-to-hyperframes |
Translate a Remotion (React) composition into a HyperFrames HTML composition |
gsap |
GSAP timelines for HyperFrames: paused registration, deterministic seeking, easing, sequencing, performance |
animejs |
Anime.js animations and timelines registered on window.__hfAnime for deterministic HyperFrames seeking |
css-animations |
CSS keyframe animation patterns that HyperFrames can discover, pause, and seek |
lottie |
lottie-web and dotLottie players registered on window.__hfLottie with local assets and paused playback |
three |
Three.js scenes that render from HyperFrames hf-seek events and window.__hfThreeTime instead of wall-clock time |
waapi |
Web Animations API element.animate() patterns seeked through document.getAnimations() |
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.
Cloning the repo
The repo uses Git LFS for golden regression-test baselines under packages/producer/tests/**/output.mp4 (~240 MB of .mp4 files). If you're cloning the full repo for development, install Git LFS first:
# macOS
brew install git-lfs
# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install git-lfs
# Windows
winget install GitHub.GitLFS
# (or install Git for Windows, which bundles Git LFS as an optional component)
# Then (once, per machine)
git lfs install
If you hit git-lfs filter-process: command not found during git clone or npx skills add heygen-com/hyperframes, install Git LFS and retry. You can also skip LFS content if you only need the source files:
GIT_LFS_SKIP_SMUDGE=1 git clone https://github.com/heygen-com/hyperframes.git
