Rewrite of the website-to-hyperframes skill that came out of 11
evaluation rounds. The honest read of those evals: prose-only
guidance had hit its ceiling — sub-agents kept reporting "0 errors,
looks good" without doing the work, producing slideshow-quality
videos with mismatched brand colors, missing logos, and beats that
didn't serve the storyboard. This restructure addresses the
failure modes that real videos showed, not theoretical ones.
**Step structure (replaces 7-step layout with concept-first 6-step)**
Old: capture → design → script → storyboard → vo → build → validate
New: capture → design → brief → storyboard → vo → build → validate
The brief step (Step 2) is new: a conversation-shaped step that
aligns message + audience + arc before any beat-writing happens.
Concept-first throughout — message → arc → beats that serve the arc
→ which assets and techniques bring each beat to life.
**Step 0 (capture)**
- "View the contact sheets — carefully, every cell, not a glance"
closes the failure mode where agents reported "viewed the contact
sheet" after one scroll and later wrote beats referencing assets
that didn't exist or missed the brand logo.
- Names the right artifacts to read in order (tokens.json →
design-styles.json → asset-descriptions.md → fonts-manifest.json),
with read-on-demand guidance for the rest.
**Step 1 (design)**
- DESIGN.md authoring guide. Restored component CSS sections
(Component Stylings, Spacing & Layout, Depth & Elevation) that
earlier batches over-collapsed.
**Step 2 (brief)**
- Strategy/messaging step. Clear instruction for "Surprise me" /
minimal direction: state the minimum context (where the video
runs, who it's for) and proceed bold.
**Step 3 (storyboard + script)**
- Concept gate at the top — answer "what makes this video distinct"
before writing beat 1.
- Brand-floor MUST rules (logo in opener + closer; signature visual
somewhere in the video).
- Captured assets (SVG logos, illustrations, hero art, gradients)
are first-class beat content alongside composed UIs — many of
them carry beats outright. The constraint is only that you start
from the message, not the asset inventory.
**Step 4 (vo)**
- TTS ranking: HeyGen first (auto word timestamps), ElevenLabs
second, Kokoro free. Audio timing reconciliation gate: if actual
audio duration ≠ storyboard planned ±15%, rescale beats or trim
script before Step 5.
**Step 5 (build) + beat-builder-guide.md**
- Sub-agent template now pastes brand values inline rather than
telling the sub-agent to re-read DESIGN.md. Targeted file reads
with specific sections + line ranges.
- "Patterns that ARE shots" affirmative list (captured logo
draw-on, hero illustration push-in, captured screenshot with
parallax layers, kinetic typography over captured asset).
- Webpage-mimicry patterns (full CSS browser chrome, parked-camera
composition, ±2px breathing motion) marked ⚠ rather than ❌ —
fine when the storyboard genuinely calls for them as the subject.
- Required cinematography per beat: shot type, camera move, depth
strategy, purpose.
**Step 6 (validate) — per-beat read protocol**
This replaces the previous "spawn verify-beats CLI" gate. A grep
of composition HTML can catch structural lies (missing hex codes,
wrong asset paths) but it can't catch boring beats, off-screen
logos, GSAP timelines that only cover the first 2 seconds, or
camera moves that don't match the storyboard. Those failures only
surface when somebody opens the file and reads it.
Per-beat verdict template names the brand hex codes used, captured
asset paths referenced, headline `font-size`, GSAP timeline
coverage, and storyboard alignment. Critic sub-agent scores a
"Captured asset utilization" dimension specifically so the eval
captures whether captured SVGs/illustrations carried beats or got
recreated as divs.
**Asset bundle**
- 20 Pixabay-licensed SFX files with `CREDITS.md` documenting
provenance. SFX assignment moved to Step 3 (creative decision)
so Step 5 implements rather than improvises.
- Capabilities reference + html-in-canvas-patterns updated:
Three.js 0.181.2 + ESM jsm imports, mulberry32 seeded PRNG for
deterministic shatter, 24-effect text-animation catalog
referenced (catalog itself lands in the hyperframes-skill PR).
- Visual vocabulary rewritten: replaces user-word lookup tables
with brand-first derivation across 6 axes; user words land as
modifiers, not replacements.
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
