--docker render (#1196)
* fix(cli): support arm64 hosts for `--docker` render
The Docker render path pinned `--platform linux/amd64` for both build
and run, which on Apple Silicon / Graviton forced qemu emulation of
chrome-headless-shell. The emulated chrome process either SEGV'd or
hung on page navigation, producing the failures reported in #1193 /
#1194 / #1195.
Derive the platform from `process.arch` instead. On arm64 hosts:
- The image builds natively (no qemu).
- The Dockerfile skips the chrome-headless-shell install because
Chrome for Testing only publishes a `linux64` build (verified
against the known-good-versions manifest).
- The wrapper script leaves `PRODUCER_HEADLESS_SHELL_PATH` unset
when no headless-shell binary is present, so the engine falls
back to the system chromium that the Dockerfile already
installs from apt and points at via `PUPPETEER_EXECUTABLE_PATH`.
`TARGETARCH` is forwarded as an explicit `--build-arg` instead of
relying on BuildKit's automatic platform args — the legacy
builder (and some BuildKit configs, including colima on macOS)
leaves it unset, which would silently bypass the arch conditional
in the Dockerfile.
Image tags are now suffixed with `-arm64` on arm64 hosts so amd64
and arm64 images of the same hyperframes version can coexist in
the local cache.
The arm64 path renders correctly but loses byte-for-byte parity
with amd64 (system chromium uses screenshot capture, not
HeadlessExperimental.beginFrame). The CLI prints a one-line
warning so users comparing against amd64 baselines know.
Verified on macOS 26.5 / M4 Max:
- Before: `qemu: unknown option 'type=gpu-process'` followed by a
chrome-headless-shell SIGSEGV after ~4 minutes.
- After: 300/300 frames captured in ~18s of render time (1m18s
wallclock including a one-time image build), MP4 produced.
Closes #1193
Closes #1194
Closes #1195
* fix(cli): address review feedback on docker arm64 fix
Follow-up to 61880cdc. Addresses one substantive review comment from
@vanceingalls and three self-review gaps.
1. Restore loud build failure on amd64 when chrome-headless-shell is
missing (per @vanceingalls). The original Dockerfile used an `&&`
chain that crashed the build if `find` returned empty; the new
`if/else` wrapper silently fell through to system chromium even on
amd64, which would mask golden-baseline regressions from a future
@puppeteer/browsers cache layout change. The else branch now checks
`TARGETARCH = amd64` and exits 1 with an actionable error, while
arm64 still falls through to the system-chromium wrapper cleanly.
2. Add `HYPERFRAMES_DOCKER_PLATFORM` env override. The fix derives
platform from `process.arch`, which silently picks the wrong arch
in three real-world cases: x64 Node under Rosetta on Apple Silicon
(re-triggers issue #1193), parity-regen for amd64 golden baselines
on an arm64 host, and DOCKER_HOST pointing at a remote daemon with
a different arch. Empty/whitespace override is a no-op (falls back
to arch detection) so `export FOO=""` doesn't pin platform to "".
3. Fail fast when `--gpu` is requested on arm64. Docker Desktop on
Apple Silicon doesn't implement `--gpus` passthrough; the previous
code would crash at `docker run` with an opaque device-driver
error. We now short-circuit with errorBox pointing at the env
override as the workaround.
4. Close the test gap on the default-arch resolution. Every previous
test passed `arch` explicitly; a refactor that dropped the
`= process.arch` default would pass all tests but break every arm64
host at runtime. Added one assertion that calls
`resolveDockerPlatform()` with no args, plus coverage for the env
override.
The new arm64 platform-checking logic is extracted into
`resolveDockerHostPlatform()` so `renderDocker` itself stays focused
on the build/run wiring (and below the fallow complexity gate).
Test plan:
- `bunx vitest run packages/cli/src/utils/dockerRunArgs.test.ts` — 31 passed (was 27).
- `bunx vitest run packages/cli` — 647 passed (was 643).
- E2E on macOS 26.5 / M4 Max: deleted the cached arm64 image, ran
`--docker --quality draft --workers 1` against the blank scaffold —
300/300 frames in 1m1s wallclock, MP4 produced.
Write HTML. Render video. Built for agents.
Quickstart | Showcase | Playground | Catalog | Docs | Discord
HyperFrames is an open-source framework for turning HTML, CSS, media, and seekable animations into deterministic MP4 videos. Use it locally with the CLI, from AI coding agents with skills, or as the rendering core behind hosted authoring workflows.
Quick Start
With an AI coding agent
Install the HyperFrames skills, then describe the video you want:
npx skills add heygen-com/hyperframes
Try a prompt like:
Using
/hyperframes, create a 10-second product intro with a fade-in title, a background video, and subtle background music.
The skills teach agents the HyperFrames production loop: plan the video, write valid HTML, wire seekable animations, add media, lint, preview, and render. They work with Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Codex, and other coding agents that support skills.
For visual design handoff workflows, see the Claude Design guide and Open Design guide.
Manually with the CLI
npx hyperframes init my-video
cd my-video
npx hyperframes preview # preview in browser with live reload
npx hyperframes render # render to MP4
Requirements: Node.js 22+, FFmpeg
What You Can Build
Need ideas? Browse the Showcase for finished videos you can watch, read, run, and remix.
- Product launch videos and feature announcements
- PR walkthroughs with animated code diffs, narration, and captions
- Data visualizations, chart races, and map animations
- Social videos with kinetic captions, overlays, and music
- Docs-to-video, PDF-to-video, and website-to-video explainers
- Reusable motion graphics for automated content pipelines
Frame.md
frame.md — your design system, ready for video.
Every brand has a design.md. None of them were written for a camera. frame.md is the missing translation layer: it takes your web-context design spec and inverts it for the frame — the same tokens, the same rules, but rewritten so an AI agent can compose a promo video without guessing at scale or reaching for web chrome.
The output is a DESIGN.md superset your whole toolchain can read. Atoms stay sacred. Composition stays free. Numbers come from the script.
Biennale Yellow |
BlockFrame |
Blue Professional |
Bold Poster |
Broadside |
Capsule |
Cartesian |
Cobalt Grid |
Coral |
Creative Mode |
Browse and remix them all at hyperframes.dev/design.
How It Works
Define a video as HTML. Add data attributes for timing and tracks. Use GSAP, CSS, Lottie, Three.js, Anime.js, WAAPI, or your own frame adapter for seekable animation.
<div id="stage" data-composition-id="launch" data-start="0" data-width="1920" data-height="1080">
<video
class="clip"
data-start="0"
data-duration="6"
data-track-index="0"
src="intro.mp4"
muted
playsinline
></video>
<h1 id="title" class="clip" data-start="1" data-duration="4" data-track-index="1">Launch day</h1>
<audio
data-start="0"
data-duration="6"
data-track-index="2"
data-volume="0.5"
src="music.wav"
></audio>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/gsap@3/dist/gsap.min.js"></script>
<script>
const tl = gsap.timeline({ paused: true });
tl.from("#title", { opacity: 0, y: 40, duration: 0.8 }, 1);
window.__timelines = window.__timelines || {};
window.__timelines.launch = tl;
</script>
</div>
Preview instantly in the browser. Render locally or in Docker. The renderer seeks each frame in headless Chrome and encodes the result with FFmpeg, so the same input produces the same video.
HyperFrames Stack
HyperFrames is the open-source rendering engine, plus a growing set of tools around HTML-native video creation.
| Piece | Status | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Available | Scaffold, preview, lint, inspect, and render local video projects |
| Core / Engine / Producer | Available | Parse compositions, drive headless Chrome, encode video, and mix audio |
| Catalog | Available | Reusable blocks and components for transitions, overlays, captions, charts, maps, and effects |
| Agent skills | Available | Teach coding agents the video-production patterns that generic web docs miss |
| Studio | Available, evolving | Browser surface for previewing and editing compositions |
| AWS Lambda rendering | Available | Deploy a distributed render stack and drive renders from your laptop or CI |
| hyperframes.dev | Available | Community playground for previewing, iterating, sharing, and rendering HTML-native video projects |
| frame.md | Available | Invert your design system for the camera — a DESIGN.md superset an agent can compose video from |
Catalog
Install ready-to-use blocks and components:
npx hyperframes add flash-through-white # shader transition
npx hyperframes add instagram-follow # social overlay
npx hyperframes add data-chart # animated chart
Browse the catalog at hyperframes.heygen.com/catalog.
Why HyperFrames?
- HTML-native: compositions are HTML files with data attributes. No React requirement, no proprietary timeline format.
- Agent-friendly: agents already write HTML, and the CLI is non-interactive by default.
- Deterministic: same input, same frames, same output. Built for CI, regression tests, and automated rendering.
- No build step: an
index.htmlcomposition plays as-is and can be previewed directly in the browser. - Adapter-based animation: bring GSAP, CSS animations, Lottie, Three.js, Anime.js, WAAPI, or a custom runtime.
- Open source: Apache 2.0 license, with no per-render fees or commercial-use thresholds.
HyperFrames vs Remotion
HyperFrames is inspired by Remotion. Both tools render video with headless Chrome and FFmpeg. The main difference is the authoring model: Remotion's bet is React components; HyperFrames' bet is plain HTML that humans and agents can both write easily.
| HyperFrames | Remotion | |
|---|---|---|
| Authoring | HTML + CSS + seekable animation | React components |
| Build step | None; index.html plays as-is |
Bundler required |
| Agent handoff | Plain HTML files | JSX / React project |
| Library-clock animations | Seekable, frame-accurate via adapters | Wall-clock animation patterns need care |
| Distributed rendering | Local and AWS Lambda render paths | Remotion Lambda, mature cloud renderer |
| License | Apache 2.0 | Source-available Remotion License |
Read the full comparison in the HyperFrames vs Remotion guide.
Documentation
Full documentation: hyperframes.heygen.com/introduction
Packages
| Package | Description |
|---|---|
hyperframes |
CLI for creating, previewing, linting, and rendering compositions |
@hyperframes/core |
Types, parsers, generators, linter, runtime, and frame adapters |
@hyperframes/engine |
Seekable page-to-video capture engine using Puppeteer and FFmpeg |
@hyperframes/producer |
Full rendering pipeline for capture, encode, and audio mix |
@hyperframes/studio |
Browser-based composition editor UI |
@hyperframes/player |
Embeddable <hyperframes-player> web component |
@hyperframes/shader-transitions |
WebGL shader transitions for compositions |
@hyperframes/aws-lambda |
AWS Lambda SDK and deployment surface for distributed renders |
Community
HyperFrames is used in production at HeyGen, with community examples from teams like tldraw, TanStack, and others in ADOPTERS.md. Open a PR if your team is using HyperFrames.
- Questions and ideas: Discord
- Bugs and feature requests: GitHub Issues
- Security reports: SECURITY.md
- Contributions: CONTRIBUTING.md
Development Note
The repo uses Git LFS for golden regression-test baselines under packages/producer/tests/**/output.mp4 (about 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
# Then, once per machine
git lfs install
If you only need source files, you can skip LFS content:
GIT_LFS_SKIP_SMUDGE=1 git clone https://github.com/heygen-com/hyperframes.git










