* feat(catalog): put the variables panel back, on payloads The panel drove its preview by loading an .html from docs/public, a type the host does not publish, so it showed an empty frame in production and was parked when the catalog was re-landed. It now mounts the same JSON payload the plain player uses and re-mounts it as values change, injecting them as window.__hfVariables into the composition head before any of its scripts run, which is where the runtime reads overrides from. Doing it in the markup rather than after load is what stops the composition initialising with the wrong values first. 172 items with variables get the panel back; the playhead carries across a change so a tweak mid-shot does not jump back to frame zero. * fix(docs): drop the unused url form and the needless escapes * fix(docs): the panel cannot reference a binding beside the export * feat(catalog): make importing an SVG the obvious move A reader arrives at this control with a shape, not with path data, and the panel asked for the coordinates first. Import is now the primary action in a drop target you can see is a drop target, and the raw path sits behind a disclosure for anyone who wants it. * feat(cli): let a fruitless catalog search report the gap An agent that searches by meaning and finds nothing worth installing knows something we do not: the name of a move the catalog is missing. There was no way to tell us, so that knowledge was lost at the end of every run. hyperframes feedback --search-miss "<query>" --wanted "<the move>" records it. It carries no rating, so it never lands in the rating metric, and it is a separate deliberate command rather than something catalog --query does on its own: plain search still sends nothing, which is what the CLI promises. --rating stops being required at the arg level, since a miss has no rating to give. The check moved into the run body, where an absent one is now handled rather than crashing on undefined. * feat(cli): carry tuned variable values into the install snippet Someone who tunes a block on its catalog page had no way to keep those values: the install command was the same one everybody gets, and the tuning stayed on the page. hyperframes add <item> --vars '<json>' now prints a mount element carrying data-variable-values, so the values land where the block is used. They ride on the host rather than being written into the installed file. That keeps the composition on disk byte-identical to the registry's, so a later reinstall can still tell an edit from an update, and it lets two mounts of the same block carry different values. * fix(catalog): serve the item's own directory so runtime paths resolve Some compositions assemble their asset URLs at run time — "compositions/components/" + texture + ".png" for the texture masks, a font the compiler pulled into _remote_media — and no scan of the markup can see a string that does not exist until a script concatenates it. Those items either rendered black or were dropped to a video that had never been uploaded. Each item that needs it now has its prepared directory published, and its payload carries a <base> pointing at it, so any relative path the composition invents resolves. caption-texture renders its masks again, and variable-font-flex has a preview at all for the first time: its MP4 and poster are both 403. Both layouts are published, because which one a composition asks for differs per item, and a directory only earns that if it is under 2 MB. The 12 MB texture sheet keeps the recorded video it already had. * fix(catalog): let the variables panel actually drive the composition Every control on the panel was inert. The values reached the composition and nothing repainted, because the payload had already been compiled: compiling inlines a mounted component and resolves its variables into the markup and CSS, so by the time a reader turns a knob there is nothing left to change. An item that declares variables now ships uncompiled, keeping the mount the runtime loads at run time, which is the only state where data-variable-values still means anything. The component travels inline as a data URI rather than a sibling file, because .html is the one type the docs host will not publish. The demo's own pinned values come off, so the reader's choices reach the mount instead of losing to the values the demo picked to show itself off. Measured on the rendered frame rather than the DOM: green rgb(98,207,144), blue rgb(6,6,199), violet rgb(177,147,230), and back to green. docs/public/catalog drops from 48 MB to 35 MB along the way, since an uncompiled payload carries far less than an inlined one. * feat(catalog): keep variable changes in the url A reader who tuned a piece lost it on reload, and had nothing to send anyone. The values now live in the query string, scoped by composition id so two links never read each other,and only the ones that differ from the defaults are written, so changing one knob gives a short URL rather than every variable spelled out. replaceState rather than pushState: dragging a slider should not leave a trail of history entries. An unreadable value is ignored rather than thrown, so a truncated or hand-edited link opens the piece at its defaults. * fix(catalog): only rewrite the url when a value actually changed * refactor(catalog): memoise the declared defaults on their content * feat(catalog): offer an install command carrying the tuned values The Install block is generated before anyone touches a knob, so it can only ever print the plain command. Someone who spent a minute tuning a piece copied it and got the defaults back. The panel now carries its own command in the Snippet tab, with --vars holding exactly the values that differ. An untouched piece still offers the same short command, so nothing gets noisier for the common case. * fix(catalog): a piece with nothing to render is a skip, not a failure caption-blend-difference is a stylesheet and a paragraph of prose — a class you add to your own captions, with no standalone scene to show. The generator treated that as a build failure, so every run ended by reporting something broken when nothing was. It now reports the shape it is and keeps its recorded video, which is the only honest preview such an item has. A genuine render failure still throws. * fix(catalog): restore variables from the url on a cold load A shared link opened at the defaults. The first render happens on the server, where there is no window to read the query string from, and React then hydrates against that markup and never revisits it — so the values only appeared once you touched a control. The URL is read again after mount, which is the first moment it exists. The value is also escaped once now rather than twice: URLSearchParams already decodes on the way out, and decoding a second time turned an SVG path full of percent-escapes into something that no longer parsed, besides doubling the length of every link. * fix(catalog): mount the preview with the values a link carried The frame was built from the declared defaults and the shared values were posted to it afterwards, which is too late for anything the composition reads once at init: a path arrived after the mark had already been drawn from the default one, so a link looked right in the panel and wrong on screen. * feat(catalog): the install command follows the values you tuned Copying the Install line gave the plain command back, because that block is generated before anyone touches a knob and had no way to know what changed. The tuned command only existed in the panel Snippet tab, which is not where anyone looks for it. The line now reads the same query string the panel writes, so the two agree without either component knowing the other exists, and a shared link carries the right command too. replaceState fires no event, so the panel announces its own writes. * fix(catalog): send a text variable to the preview once it is finished Every other control in the explorer reports a whole value on every event: a slider at any position is a position, a swatch is a colour. A text field is not. Typing v3 into a badge posted v first, so the preview remounted and rendered a composition built from half a word. The post now waits while a text field has focus and goes out when the edit is committed, with Enter or by clicking away. The field itself is unchanged and still tracks every keystroke. --------- Co-authored-by: Miguel Angel Simon Sierra <miguelangelsi07@gmail.com>
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name, description
| name | description |
|---|---|
| hyperframes-cli | Use the HyperFrames CLI development loop: init, add, catalog, capture, lint, check, snapshot, compare, grade-compare, preview, play, present, beats, keyframes, single or batch render, publish, cloud, cloudrun, feedback, lambda, doctor, browser, info, upgrade, skills, compositions, docs, benchmark, telemetry, transcribe, auth, tts, and remove-background. Also use when diagnosing build or render failures. validate, inspect, and layout are deprecated aliases; use check. Covers local, HeyGen-hosted cloud, AWS Lambda, and Google Cloud Run rendering. |
HyperFrames CLI
Run commands as npx hyperframes ... unless project instructions provide a wrapper. Obey the wrapper when present. The CLI requires Node.js 22 or newer and FFmpeg.
Development loop
- Scaffold:
npx hyperframes init <project>or capture a site. In non-TTY mode, pass--non-interactive --example=<name>. - Find the move: before authoring motion by hand, search for a primitive that already does it:
npx hyperframes catalog --query "reveal a headline one line at a time". Ask for the effect you want rather than the mechanism you have in mind. Install withnpx hyperframes add <name>(see/hyperframes-registry). Author by hand only once nothing fits. - Author: write the composition using
/hyperframes-core. - Get fast feedback while editing: run
npx hyperframes lintafter the first HTML pass and after structural changes. - Run the final gate: run
npx hyperframes check; it reruns lint before opening the browser. Do not prepend a redundant standalone lint invocation. Add--snapshotsfor annotated overview frames and finding crops. - Inspect sub-compositions: when
index.htmlmountsdata-composition-src, capture midpoint snapshots and inspect each mounted scene. - Open the final Studio preview: run
npx hyperframes preview, hand the timeline project URL to the user, and ask whether to revise or render. - Render only after approval: use draft quality for iteration and high quality for delivery.
- Verify the output: confirm the file exists, is non-empty, and has a plausible duration.
# Fast iteration check; repeat while authoring as needed.
npx hyperframes lint
# Required final gate; includes lint.
npx hyperframes check
npx hyperframes preview
npx hyperframes render --quality high --output out.mp4
test -s out.mp4
ffprobe -v error -show_format out.mp4
check runs lint first, then uses one browser session and one seek pass to audit runtime errors, failed requests, layout, *.motion.json assertions, and WCAG contrast. Persistent findings gate the exit code; transient entrance or exit findings are informational. Use --strict to gate warnings. validate, inspect, and layout remain aliases for compatibility but must not appear in new instructions or scripts.
Two different preview surfaces
Do not confuse these states:
| Surface | When it may open | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Storyboard board | Before composition checks, only when storyboard: yes |
Review plan cards and wireframe sketches. Open ?view=storyboard#project/<name>. |
| Final composition preview | After check passes |
Review the assembled timeline before render. Open #project/<name>. |
The early board is not approval of the final video. Rendering always requires the final approval defined by hyperframes-core/references/review-loop.md.
Sub-composition smoke test
Static audits cannot catch every mount failure. When the project uses sub-compositions, capture at least one visible midpoint for each host slot:
npx hyperframes snapshot --at <t1>,<t2>,<t3>
Treat tiny unstyled content, canvas-sized icons, missing hero elements, or timeline-registration timeouts as render-blocking mount defects. See hyperframes-core/references/sub-compositions.md for the corresponding fixes.
Agent conventions
-
Search the catalog before writing motion by hand.
npx hyperframes catalog --query "<the beat, in plain language>". Search is entirely local: there is no hosted tier, no account, and the query text is never sent anywhere. By default it ranks on vocabulary shared with the item's name, title and description, which misses any phrasing that does not reuse the catalog's own wording. Add--on-deviceto rank by meaning instead (see the offline tier below). -
Read which tier answered; never infer it from results appearing. With
--jsonthe envelope carriesquery,tier(on-deviceorwords),tier_detail,dropped,unindexed,shown,totalandresults, plustop_scorewhen the answering tier produces one andwarningswhen a tier was asked for and could not run. A weak result onwordsis expected; the same result onon-deviceis a bug.top_scoreis on-device only and has no threshold behind it: the ranker returns the whole catalog in some order for every query, so read it as evidence rather than as a pass or fail. -
droppedandunindexedare opposite skews between the registry and the on-device index, and rewording the query fixes neither.droppedcounts ranked names this registry cannot install, so the strongest matches are the ones being lost.unindexedcounts registry moves the index cannot see at all, which no query can ever return. Refreshing the registry is not the answer to either: its manifest carries a 24h TTL and heals itself, while the vectors are a separately published artifact fetched into~/.hyperframes/catalog/. Re-running with--on-devicerefetches that index whenunindexedis above zero, so that is the remedy to hand the user. A pure over-coverage skew (droppedabove zero whileunindexedis zero) does not trigger the refetch; clearing~/.hyperframes/catalog/is the only way out of that one. Both counts are of names rather than of results, so either can exceedtotal. -
When meaning search comes back with nothing worth installing, say so.
npx hyperframes feedback --search-miss "<the query you ran>" --wanted "<the move you needed>" --tier on-device. This is the only path that sends a query anywhere, and it is a separate deliberate command precisely so plaincatalog --querykeeps its promise of sending nothing. Report the miss when the on-device tier answered and the top hits still do not do the thing; a weak result on thewordstier is expected and is not worth reporting. What comes back is a list of moves the catalog does not have yet, read directly rather than guessed from install counts, so the phrasing that matters is the effect you wanted, not the item name you imagined. It carries no rating and never lands in the rating metric. -
Offer the offline tier; never enable it silently. A one-time ~33 MB download (a quantized ONNX build of
bge-small-en-v1.5plus its tokenizer, pinned to a fixed revision) and the catalog vectors from the registry, both cached under~/.hyperframes/, neither added to the project or any package. Once cached it ranks by meaning with nothing sent. Say the size out loud and let the person decide, then pass--on-device(with-yto skip the prompt) once they agree. The interactive offer only fires on a TTY, and under--jsonnothing about it is printed at all, so in an agent run you have to raise it with the user yourself. -
Prefer
--jsonfor agent and CI calls. Server-moderender,preview, andplaydo not provide ordinary JSON output;preview --selection --jsonandpreview --context --jsonare query-mode exceptions. -
doctor --jsonalways exits zero. Gate on its payload:npx hyperframes doctor --json | jq -e '.ok' >/dev/null -
Non-TTY mode is automatic.
initrequires--examplethere; use--non-interactiveto force deterministic behavior on a TTY. -
Use one
HYPERFRAMES_RUN_IDfor all commands in the same verification loop. -
Use
--strict,--strict-all, and--strict-variableswhen the corresponding warnings, variables, or CI conditions must gate the render. -
JSON paths redact the home directory as
$HOME; do not try to reverse the redaction. -
When a hosted cloud project approaches or exceeds the 200 MB upload limit, use
cloud render --dry-run --jsonand follow the.hyperframesignoreinvestigation inreferences/cloud.md. Never ignore an asset merely because it is large. -
Never render merely because checks pass. Pause at the final preview and wait for approval.
Studio-directed edits
When the user refers to “this element” or the current selection, query Studio instead of guessing:
npx hyperframes preview --context --json --context-fields selection
Use selection.target.hfId when available, otherwise its selector and source file. If the result reports no-selection, ask the user to click the element and rerun. Request only the context slices you need; use --context-detail full only for computed styles or editable text metadata. Full behavior and failure codes live in references/preview-render.md.
Render choices
| Need | Command |
|---|---|
| Fast local iteration | npx hyperframes render --quality draft |
| Final local delivery | npx hyperframes render --quality high --output out.mp4 |
| Reproducible container render | npx hyperframes render --docker --strict --output out.mp4 |
| Local variable-driven batch render | npx hyperframes render --batch rows.json --output "renders/{name}.mp4" |
| HeyGen-hosted zero-infrastructure render | npx hyperframes cloud render |
| Self-managed distributed AWS render | npx hyperframes lambda render <project> --width 1920 --height 1080 --wait |
| Self-managed distributed GCP render | npx hyperframes cloudrun render <project> --width 1920 --height 1080 --wait |
Skill attribution is automatic — the examples above need no --skill. A project scaffolded by a workflow (hyperframes init --skill=<workflow>) records its owning skill in hyperframes.json, and every later render inherits it on anonymous telemetry: re-renders, npm run render, and --batch alike. Pass --skill=<slug> explicitly only to stamp a project that was not created through a workflow (its first render then persists it).
Use cloud rendering when the user wants hosted rendering without local Chrome, FFmpeg, or AWS. Use Lambda only when AWS ownership is a requirement. Use Cloud Run only when GCP ownership is a requirement. Read the matching reference before running any cloud path.
After verifying a successful render, send one feedback report unless telemetry is disabled or the user opted out:
npx hyperframes feedback --rating <0-10> --comment "<specific result or friction>"
Keep clean-run feedback concise. For any bug or friction, capture a reproduction packet before submitting; do not send only a symptom summary. Include the rerunnable command (relative to the project directory — feedback is submitted to a public channel, so do not paste absolute paths, home-directory prefixes, or user/machine identifiers), expected versus actual behavior, exact error (also strip absolute paths from stack traces — keep basename + line, drop the leading directory), whether output completed/fell back/failed, workaround, and repro-project status. For a rating ≤ 7 that describes a visual defect (black frame, flicker, corrupt output, wrong frame, blank output, other visual anomaly), also include a COMPOSITION_STRUCTURE: block — a privacy-preserving structural anatomy (element census + attribute presence + timeline shape) so maintainers can pattern-match against known bug families without the composition ZIP. Agents auto-fill this via the composition-census helper; the human user does not fill it by hand. If the issue did not reproduce again, say so and still include the last failing command and logs. Use --file-issue only with consent: it publishes a minimal reproduction to a public URL. The required packet format and privacy warning live in references/preview-render.md.
Read the matching reference before running a command
The following references and owning skills are mandatory command contracts, not optional background reading. Before running a command in the table, read its matching row.
| Need | Reference |
|---|---|
init, capture, skills |
references/init-and-scaffold.md |
lint, check, motion sidecars, snapshot |
references/lint-validate-inspect.md |
compare, grade-compare, variable-driven render --batch |
references/compare-and-batch.md |
beats for an existing project's Studio beat grid |
references/beats.md |
preview, play, render, publish, Studio context, feedback |
references/preview-render.md |
doctor, browser management |
references/doctor-browser.md |
auth, HeyGen-hosted cloud rendering, and template variables |
references/cloud.md |
| AWS Lambda deployment and rendering | references/lambda.md |
| Google Cloud Run deployment and rendering | references/cloudrun.md |
info, upgrade, compositions, docs, benchmark, telemetry, media preprocessing |
references/upgrade-info-misc.md |
For composition variables, also read /hyperframes-core → references/variables-and-media.md. For hyperframes add and hyperframes catalog, use /hyperframes-registry. Before hyperframes present, read /slideshow; before hyperframes keyframes, read /hyperframes-keyframes. For TTS, transcription, captions, or background removal choices, use /media-use.
The specialized commands are deliberately documented by their owning workflows:
npx hyperframes present <project-dir> --port 3004 --no-open
npx hyperframes beats <project-dir> --json
npx hyperframes keyframes <project-dir> --json
present serves a navigable deck with presenter and audience synchronization. beats is the standalone Studio beat-grid utility defined in references/beats.md. keyframes surfaces seek-safe animation and motion-path diagnostics.