{"slug": "openmontage-the-first-open-source-agentic-video-production-system", "title": "OpenMontage the first open-source, agentic video production system", "summary": "OpenMontage, the first open-source agentic video production system, has been released, enabling AI coding assistants to handle research, scripting, asset generation, editing, and final composition from plain-language descriptions. The system can produce real video videos using free stock footage and open archives, with example productions costing as little as $0.15 to $1.33.", "body_md": "**The first open-source, agentic video production system.**\n\n[Paste A Video](#start-from-a-video-you-already-love) ·\n[Quick Start](#quick-start) ·\n[Try These Prompts](#try-these-prompts) ·\n[Pipelines](#pipelines) ·\n[How It Works](#how-it-works) ·\n[Providers](/calesthio/OpenMontage/blob/main/docs/PROVIDERS.md) ·\n[Agent Guide](/calesthio/OpenMontage/blob/main/AGENT_GUIDE.md)\n\n**Follow The Build**\n\nTurn your AI coding assistant into a full video production studio. Describe what you want in plain language — your agent handles research, scripting, asset generation, editing, and final composition.\n\n**Important distinction:** OpenMontage can make image-based videos, but it can also make a real **video video** for free/open-source workflows: the agent builds a corpus from free stock footage and open archives, retrieves actual motion clips, edits them into a timeline, and renders a finished piece. That is not the usual \"animate a handful of stills and call it video\" trick.\n\n## signal-from-tomorrow_final_with_music_upload_v2.mp4\n\n\"SIGNAL FROM TOMORROW\"— a cinematic sci-fi trailer fully produced through OpenMontage: concept, script, scene plan, Veo-generated motion clips, soundtrack, and Remotion composition.\n\n## the_last_banana_v3_github.mp4\n\n\"THE LAST BANANA\"— a 60-second Pixar-style animated short about a lonely banana who finds friendship with a kiwi. 6 Kling v3-generated motion clips (via fal.ai), Google Chirp3-HD narration, royalty-free piano music, TikTok-style word-level captions, and Remotion composition. Total cost:$1.33.\n\n## void-linkedin.mp4\n\n\"VOID — Neural Interface\"— a product ad produced with just one API key (OpenAI). 4 AI-generated images (gpt-image-1), TTS narration, auto-sourced royalty-free music, word-level subtitles via WhisperX, and Remotion data visualizations. Total cost:$0.69. Zero manual asset work.\n\n## candyland.mp4\n\n\"Afternoon in Candyland\"— a Ghibli-style anime animation. A little girl's whimsical afternoon adventure through candy gates, gumdrop rivers, and lollipop gardens. 12 FLUX-generated images with multi-image crossfade, cinematic camera motion (zoom, pan, Ken Burns), sparkle/petal/firefly particle overlays, and ambient music with auto-detected energy offset. Total cost:$0.15. No video generation, no manual editing.\n\n## mori-no-seishin.mp4\n\n\"Mori no Seishin\"— a Ghibli-style anime animation of a forest spirit's journey through ancient woods. 12 FLUX-generated images with parallax crossfade, drift and pan camera motion, firefly and petal particles, cinematic vignette lighting, and ambient forest soundtrack. Total cost:$0.15. Still images brought to life through Remotion's animation engine.\n\n## deep-ocean.mp4\n\n\"Into the Abyss\"— a deep ocean exploration rendered in anime style. Bioluminescent gardens, coral cathedrals, and creatures of light — 12 FLUX-generated images with sparkle and mist particle overlays, light-ray effects, smooth camera motion, and ambient oceanic soundtrack. Total cost:$0.15. Zero video generation APIs needed.\n\n[ Subscribe to @OpenMontage on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@OpenMontage?sub_confirmation=1) to see new videos as they ship — every video includes the full prompt, pipeline, tools used, and cost so you can reproduce it yourself.\n\nStarting from a reference video is often faster than starting from a blank prompt.\n\nOpenMontage can start from a **YouTube video, Short, Reel, TikTok, or local clip** and turn it into a grounded production plan:\n\n**Paste a reference video****The agent analyzes transcript, pacing, scenes, keyframes, and style****You get 2-3 differentiated concepts, an honest tool path, cost estimates, and a sample before full production**\n\n```\n\"Here's a YouTube Short I love. Make me something like this, but about quantum computing.\"\n```\n\nWhat you get back is not \"best guess prompt spaghetti.\" You get:\n\n**What it keeps** from the reference: pacing, hook style, structure, tone**What it changes**: topic, visual treatment, angle, narration approach** What it will cost**at your target duration, before asset generation starts** What it will actually look like**with your currently available tools\n\nWorks with **Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, Codex** — any AI coding assistant that can read files and run code.\n\n**Python 3.10+**—[python.org](https://www.python.org/downloads/)** FFmpeg**—`brew install ffmpeg`\n\n/`sudo apt install ffmpeg`\n\n/[ffmpeg.org](https://ffmpeg.org/download.html)**Node.js 18+**—[nodejs.org](https://nodejs.org/)** An AI coding assistant**— Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, or Codex\n\n```\ngit clone https://github.com/calesthio/OpenMontage.git\ncd OpenMontage\nmake setup\n```\n\nOpen the project in your AI coding assistant and tell it what you want:\n\n```\n\"Make a 60-second animated explainer about how neural networks learn\"\n```\n\nOr if you want the real-footage path:\n\n```\n\"Make a 75-second documentary montage about city life in the rain. Use real footage only, no narration, elegiac tone, with music.\"\n```\n\nThat's it. The agent researches your topic with live web search, generates AI images, writes and narrates the script with voice direction, finds royalty-free background music automatically, burns in word-level subtitles, and renders the final video. Before you see anything, the system runs a multi-point self-review — ffprobe validation, frame sampling, audio level analysis, delivery promise verification, and subtitle checks. Every provider selection is scored across 7 dimensions with an auditable decision log. Every creative decision gets your approval.\n\nNoRun manually:`make`\n\n?`pip install -r requirements.txt && cd remotion-composer && npm install && cd .. && pip install piper-tts && cp .env.example .env`\n\nWindows:If`npm install`\n\nfails with`ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE`\n\n, use`npx --yes npm install`\n\ninstead.\n\nThis repo is built for agentic operation. If you're an OpenClaw-style agent, here is the shortest path to becoming useful fast:\n\n**Read the contract first** Start with, then`AGENT_GUIDE.md`\n\n.`PROJECT_CONTEXT.md`\n\n**Do not improvise the production workflow** OpenMontage is pipeline-driven. Real work goes through`pipeline_defs/`\n\n, stage director skills in`skills/pipelines/`\n\n, and tool discovery via the registry.**Check the actual capability envelope** Run:\n\n``` python\npython -c \"from tools.tool_registry import registry; import json; registry.discover(); print(json.dumps(registry.support_envelope(), indent=2))\"\npython -c \"from tools.tool_registry import registry; import json; registry.discover(); print(json.dumps(registry.provider_menu(), indent=2))\"\n```\n\n**Treat every video request as a pipeline selection problem** Pick the right pipeline first, then read the manifest, then read the stage skill, then use tools.\n\n```\n# .env — every key is optional, add what you have\n\n# Image + video gateway:\nFAL_KEY=your-key               # FLUX images + Google Veo, Kling, MiniMax video + Recraft images\n\n# Free stock media:\nPEXELS_API_KEY=your-key        # Free stock footage and images\nPIXABAY_API_KEY=your-key       # Free stock footage and images\nUNSPLASH_ACCESS_KEY=your-key   # Free stock images\n\n# Music:\nSUNO_API_KEY=your-key          # Full songs, instrumentals, any genre\n\n# Voice & images:\nELEVENLABS_API_KEY=your-key    # Premium TTS, AI music, sound effects\nOPENAI_API_KEY=your-key        # OpenAI TTS, DALL-E 3 images\nXAI_API_KEY=your-key           # xAI Grok image edits/generation + Grok video generation\nGOOGLE_API_KEY=your-key        # Google Imagen images, Google TTS (700+ voices)\n\n# More video providers:\nHEYGEN_API_KEY=your-key        # HeyGen — VEO, Sora, Runway, Kling via single gateway\nRUNWAY_API_KEY=your-key        # Runway Gen-4 direct\n```\n\n**Have a GPU? Unlock free local video generation**\n\n```\nmake install-gpu\n\n# Then add to .env:\nVIDEO_GEN_LOCAL_ENABLED=true\nVIDEO_GEN_LOCAL_MODEL=wan2.1-1.3b  # or wan2.1-14b, hunyuan-1.5, ltx2-local, cogvideo-5b\n```\n\nYou don't need paid API keys to make real videos. Out of the box, `make setup`\n\ngives you:\n\n| Capability | Free Tool | What It Does |\n|---|---|---|\nNarration |\nPiper TTS | Free offline text-to-speech — real human-sounding narration |\nOpen footage |\nArchive.org + NASA + Wikimedia Commons | Free/open archival footage, educational media, and documentary texture |\nExtra stock |\nPexels + Unsplash + Pixabay | Free stock footage/images (developer keys are free to get) |\nComposition (React) |\nRemotion | React-based rendering — spring-animated image scenes, text cards, stat cards, charts, TikTok-style word-level captions, TalkingHead |\nComposition (HTML/GSAP) |\nHyperFrames | HTML/CSS/GSAP rendering — kinetic typography, product promos, launch reels, registry blocks, website-to-video, rigged SVG character animation |\nPost-production |\nFFmpeg | Encoding, subtitle burn-in, audio mixing, color grading |\nSubtitles |\nBuilt-in | Auto-generated captions with word-level timing |\n\nOpenMontage picks between Remotion and HyperFrames at proposal time (locked as `render_runtime`\n\n). Remotion is the default for data-driven explainers and anything using the existing React scene stack; HyperFrames is the default for motion-graphics-heavy briefs that express naturally as HTML + GSAP, including the `character-animation`\n\npipeline's SVG/GSAP rig output. See `skills/core/hyperframes.md`\n\nfor the full decision matrix.\n\n**Two free-ish paths:**\n\n**Image-based video:** Piper narrates your script, images provide the visuals, and Remotion animates them into a polished edit.**Local character animation:** SVG rigs, pose libraries, GSAP timelines, and HyperFrames render cartoon character acting to`projects/<project-name>/renders/final.mp4`\n\n.**Real-footage video:** the documentary montage pipeline builds a CLIP-searchable corpus from Archive.org, NASA, Wikimedia Commons, and optional free-key sources like Pexels and Unsplash, then cuts together actual motion footage into a finished video.\n\nIf you want the second one, prompt for a **documentary montage**, **tone poem**, or **stock-footage collage**, and explicitly say **use real footage only**.\n\nCopy any of these into your AI coding assistant after setup. Each one runs a full production pipeline.\n\n\"Here's a YouTube short I love. Make me something like this, but about CRISPR for high school students.\"\n\n\"Analyze this Reel and give me 3 original variants I could make for my own product launch.\"\n\n\"I like the pacing and hook in this video. Keep that energy, but turn it into a 45-second explainer about black holes.\"\n\n\"Make a 45-second animated explainer about why the sky is blue\"\n\n\"Create a 60-second video about the history of the internet, with narration and captions\"\n\n\"Make a data-driven explainer about coffee consumption around the world\"\n\n\"Make a 90-second documentary montage about what a city feels like at 4am. Use real footage only, no narration, elegiac tone.\"\n\n\"Create a 60-second Adam-Curtis-style archival collage about 1950s consumer optimism. Prefer Archive.org and Wikimedia footage.\"\n\n\"Cut together a dreamlike montage about coming home in the rain using real stock footage only. Music yes, narration no.\"\n\n\"Create a 30-second Ghibli-style animated video of a magical floating library in the clouds at golden hour\"\n\n\"Make a 30-second anime-style animation of an underwater temple with bioluminescent coral and ancient ruins\"\n\n\"Create an animated explainer about how CRISPR gene editing works, using AI-generated visuals\"\n\n\"Make a product launch teaser for a fictional smart water bottle called AquaPulse\"\n\n\"Create a cinematic 30-second trailer for a sci-fi concept: humanity receives a warning from 1000 years in the future\"\n\n\"Make a 90-second animated explainer about quantum computing for middle school students, with a fun narrator voice and custom soundtrack\"\n\nWant more? See the full ** Prompt Gallery** for tested prompts with expected costs and output examples, or run\n\n`make demo`\n\nto render zero-key demo videos instantly.Each pipeline is a complete production workflow, from idea to finished video.\n\n| Pipeline | What It Produces | Best For |\n|---|---|---|\nAnimated Explainer |\nAI-generated explainer with research, narration, visuals, music | Educational content, tutorials, topic breakdowns |\nAnimation |\nMotion graphics, kinetic typography, animated sequences | Social media, product demos, abstract concepts |\nAvatar Spokesperson |\nAvatar-driven presenter videos | Corporate comms, training, announcements |\nCinematic |\nTrailer, teaser, and mood-driven edits | Brand films, teasers, promotional content |\nClip Factory |\nBatch of ranked short-form clips from one long source | Repurposing long content for social media |\nDocumentary Montage |\nThematic montage cut from a CLIP-indexed corpus of free stock footage and open archives (Pexels, Archive.org, NASA, Wikimedia, Unsplash) | Video essays, mood pieces, retrieval-first B-roll edits, real-footage videos without paid generation APIs |\nHybrid |\nSource footage + AI-generated support visuals | Enhancing existing footage with graphics |\nLocalization & Dub |\nSubtitle, dub, and translate existing video | Multi-language distribution |\nPodcast Repurpose |\nPodcast highlights to video | Podcast marketing, audiogram videos |\nScreen Demo |\nPolished software screen recordings and walkthroughs | Product demos, tutorials, documentation |\nTalking Head |\nFootage-led speaker videos | Presentations, vlogs, interviews |\n\nEvery pipeline follows the same structured flow:\n\n``` php\nresearch -> proposal -> script -> scene_plan -> assets -> edit -> compose\n```\n\nEach stage has a dedicated **director skill** — a markdown instruction file that teaches the agent exactly how to execute that stage. The agent reads the skill, uses the tools, self-reviews, checkpoints state, and asks for human approval at creative decision points.\n\nWeb research is a first-class stage.Before writing a single word of script, the agent searches YouTube, Reddit, Hacker News, news sites, and academic sources. It gathers data points, audience questions, trending angles, and visual references — then cites everything in a structured research brief. Your videos are grounded in real, current information, not hallucinated facts.\n\nMost AI video tools give you a single clip from a prompt. OpenMontage gives you an **end-to-end production pipeline** — the same structured process a real production team follows, automated by your AI agent.\n\nMost \"free AI video\" stacks quietly mean \"animate still images.\" OpenMontage can do that too, but it can also build a finished video from **real footage** pulled from free/open sources, ranked semantically, edited intentionally, and rendered as a proper timeline.\n\nEdit your own talking-head footage. Generate a fully animated explainer from scratch. Cut a 2-hour podcast into a dozen social clips. Translate and dub your content into 10 languages. Build a cinematic brand teaser from stock footage and AI-generated scenes. **If a production team can make it, OpenMontage can orchestrate it.**\n\n**12 production pipelines**— explainers, talking heads, screen demos, cinematic trailers, animations, podcasts, localization, documentary montages, and more**52 production tools**— spanning video generation, image creation, text-to-speech, music, audio mixing, subtitles, enhancement, and analysis** 400+ agent skills**— production skills, pipeline directors, creative techniques, quality checklists, and deep technology knowledge packs that teach the agent how to use every tool like an expert**Reference-driven creation**— paste a video you like and the agent turns it into a grounded, differentiated production plan instead of forcing you to invent the perfect prompt from scratch**Real-footage documentary creation without paid video models**— build actual edited videos from free/open motion footage and archival sources, not just Ken Burns over images** Live web research built in**— before writing a single word of script, the agent runs 15-25+ web searches across YouTube, Reddit, news sites, and academic sources to ground your video in real, current data**Both free/local AND cloud providers**— every capability supports open-source local alternatives alongside premium APIs. Use what you have.** No vendor lock-in**— swap providers freely. The scored selector ranks every provider across 7 dimensions (task fit, output quality, control, reliability, cost efficiency, latency, continuity) and picks the best match automatically.**Production-grade quality gates**— delivery promise enforcement blocks slideshow-looking renders, pre-compose validation catches broken plans before wasting GPU time, and mandatory post-render self-review (ffprobe + frame extraction + audio analysis) ensures the agent never presents garbage. Every provider choice, style decision, and fallback gets logged in an auditable decision trail.**Budget governance built in**— cost estimation before execution, spend caps, per-action approval thresholds. No surprise bills.\n\nOpenMontage uses an **agent-first architecture**. There is no code orchestrator. Your AI coding assistant IS the orchestrator.\n\n```\nYou: \"Make an explainer video about how black holes form\"\n |\n v\nAgent reads pipeline manifest (YAML) -- stages, tools, review criteria, success gates\n |\n v\nAgent reads stage director skill (Markdown) -- HOW to execute each stage\n |\n v\nAgent calls Python tools -- scored provider selection ranks every tool across 7 dimensions\n |\n v\nAgent self-reviews using reviewer skill -- schema validation, playbook compliance, quality checks\n |\n v\nAgent checkpoints state (JSON) -- resumable, with decision log and cost snapshot\n |\n v\nAgent presents for your approval -- you stay in control at every creative decision\n |\n v\nPre-compose validation gate -- delivery promise, slideshow risk, renderer governance\n |\n v\nRender (Remotion or FFmpeg) -- composition engine matched to visual grammar\n |\n v\nPost-render self-review -- ffprobe, frame extraction, audio analysis, promise verification\n |\n v\nFinal video output -- only if self-review passes\n```\n\n**Python provides tools and persistence.** All creative decisions, orchestration logic, review criteria, and quality standards live in readable instruction files (YAML manifests + Markdown skills) that you can inspect and customize. Every decision is logged with alternatives considered, confidence scores, and the reasoning behind each choice.\n\n```\nOpenMontage/\n├── tools/              # 48 Python tools (the agent's hands)\n│   ├── video/          # 13 video gen tools + compose, stitch, trim\n│   ├── audio/          # 4 TTS providers + Suno/ElevenLabs music, mixing, enhancement\n│   ├── graphics/       # 9 image/graphics generation tools + diagrams, code snippets, math\n│   ├── enhancement/    # Upscale, bg remove, face enhance, color grade\n│   ├── analysis/       # Transcription, scene detect, frame sampling\n│   ├── avatar/         # Talking head, lip sync\n│   └── subtitle/       # SRT/VTT generation\n│\n├── pipeline_defs/      # YAML pipeline manifests (the agent's playbook)\n├── skills/             # Markdown skill files (the agent's knowledge)\n│   ├── pipelines/      # Per-pipeline stage director skills\n│   ├── creative/       # Creative technique skills\n│   ├── core/           # Core tool skills\n│   └── meta/           # Reviewer, checkpoint protocol\n│\n├── schemas/            # 15 JSON Schemas (contract validation)\n├── styles/             # Visual style playbooks (YAML)\n├── remotion-composer/  # React/Remotion video composition engine\n├── lib/                # Core infrastructure (config, checkpoints, pipeline loader)\n└── tests/              # Contract tests, QA integration tests, eval harness\nLayer 1: tools/ + pipeline_defs/     \"What exists\" — executable capabilities + orchestration\nLayer 2: skills/                     \"How to use it\" — OpenMontage conventions and quality bars\nLayer 3: .agents/skills/             \"How it works\" — external technology knowledge packs\n```\n\nEach tool declares which Layer 3 skills it relies on. The agent reads Layer 1 to know what's available, Layer 2 to know how OpenMontage wants it used, and Layer 3 for deep technical knowledge when needed.\n\nFull setup guide with pricing and free tiers:`docs/PROVIDERS.md`\n\n**Video Generation — 14 providers**\n\n| Provider | Type | Notes |\n|---|---|---|\nKling |\nCloud API | High quality, fast |\nRunway Gen-4 |\nCloud API | Cinematic quality, Gen-3 Alpha Turbo / Gen-4 Turbo / Gen-4 Aleph |\nGoogle Veo 3 |\nCloud API | Long-form, cinematic. Via fal.ai or HeyGen. |\nGrok Imagine Video |\nCloud API | Strong reference-image video and xAI-native short-form generation |\nHiggsfield |\nCloud API | Multi-model orchestrator with Soul ID for character consistency |\nMiniMax |\nCloud API | Cost-effective |\nHeyGen |\nCloud API | Multi-model gateway |\nWAN 2.1 |\nLocal GPU | Free, 1.3B and 14B variants |\nHunyuan |\nLocal GPU | Free, high quality |\nCogVideo |\nLocal GPU | Free, 2B and 5B variants |\nLTX-Video |\nLocal GPU / Modal | Free locally, or self-hosted cloud |\nPexels |\nStock | Free stock footage |\nPixabay |\nStock | Free stock footage |\nWikimedia Commons |\nStock | Free/open stock footage and archival video |\n\n**Image Generation — 10 tools/providers**\n\n| Provider | Type | Notes |\n|---|---|---|\nFLUX |\nCloud API | State-of-the-art quality |\nGoogle Imagen |\nCloud API | Imagen 4 — high-quality, multiple aspect ratios |\nGrok Imagine Image |\nCloud API | Strong image edits, style transfer, and multi-image compositing |\nDALL-E 3 |\nCloud API | OpenAI's image model |\nRecraft |\nCloud API | Design-focused generation |\nLocal Diffusion |\nLocal GPU | Stable Diffusion, free |\nPexels |\nStock | Free stock images |\nPixabay |\nStock | Free stock images |\nUnsplash |\nStock | Free stock images |\nManimCE |\nLocal | Mathematical animations |\n\n**Text-to-Speech — 4 providers**\n\n| Provider | Type | Notes |\n|---|---|---|\nElevenLabs |\nCloud API | Premium voice quality |\nGoogle TTS |\nCloud API | 700+ voices, 50+ languages — best for localization |\nOpenAI TTS |\nCloud API | Fast, affordable |\nPiper |\nLocal | Completely free, offline |\n\n**Music, Sound & Post-Production**\n\n**Music & Sound:**\n\n| Provider | Type | Notes |\n|---|---|---|\nSuno AI |\nCloud API | Full song generation with vocals, lyrics, any genre. Up to 8 minutes. |\nElevenLabs Music |\nCloud API | AI music generation |\nElevenLabs SFX |\nCloud API | Sound effect generation |\n\n**Post-Production (always available, always free):**\n\n| Tool | What It Does |\n|---|---|\nFFmpeg |\nVideo composition, encoding, subtitle burn-in, audio muxing |\nVideo Stitch |\nMulti-clip assembly, crossfades, picture-in-picture, spatial layouts |\nVideo Trimmer |\nPrecision cutting and extraction |\nAudio Mixer |\nMulti-track mixing, ducking, fades |\nAudio Enhance |\nNoise reduction, normalization |\nColor Grade |\nLUT-based color grading |\nSubtitle Gen |\nSRT/VTT generation from timestamps |\n\n**Enhancement:**\n\n| Tool | What It Does |\n|---|---|\nUpscale |\nReal-ESRGAN image/video upscaling |\nBackground Remove |\nrembg / U2Net background removal |\nFace Enhance |\nFace quality enhancement |\nFace Restore |\nCodeFormer / GFPGAN face restoration |\n\n**Analysis:**\n\n| Tool | What It Does |\n|---|---|\nTranscriber |\nWhisperX speech-to-text with word-level timestamps |\nScene Detect |\nAutomatic scene boundary detection |\nFrame Sampler |\nIntelligent frame extraction |\nVideo Understand |\nCLIP/BLIP-2 vision-language analysis |\n\n**Avatar & Lip Sync:**\n\n| Tool | What It Does |\n|---|---|\nTalking Head |\nSadTalker / MuseTalk avatar animation |\nLip Sync |\nWav2Lip audio-driven lip synchronization |\n\n**Composition & Rendering:**\n\n| Engine | Type | What It Does |\n|---|---|---|\nRemotion |\nLocal (Node.js) | React-based programmatic video — spring-animated image scenes, stat reveals, section titles, hero cards, TikTok-style word-by-word captions, scene transitions (fade/slide/wipe/flip), Google Fonts, audio with fade curves, and the TalkingHead avatar composition. When no video generation providers are configured, the agent generates still images and Remotion turns them into fully animated video. |\nHyperFrames |\nLocal (Node.js ≥ 22) | HTML/CSS/GSAP programmatic video — kinetic typography, product promos, launch reels, custom motion graphics, registry blocks (data charts, grain overlays, shader transitions), website-to-video workflows, and rigged SVG character animation. Consumed via `npx hyperframes` ; no monorepo checkout needed. |\nFFmpeg |\nLocal | Core video assembly, encoding, subtitle burn, audio muxing, color grading |\n\nRuntime is chosen at proposal (`render_runtime`\n\n) and locked through `edit_decisions`\n\n. Silent swaps between runtimes are a governance violation — see `skills/core/hyperframes.md`\n\n.\n\nStyle playbooks define the visual language for your productions:\n\n| Playbook | Best For |\n|---|---|\nClean Professional |\nCorporate, educational, SaaS |\nFlat Motion Graphics |\nSocial media, TikTok, startups |\nMinimalist Diagram |\nTechnical deep-dives, architecture |\n\nPlaybooks control typography, color palettes, motion styles, audio profiles, and quality rules. The agent reads the playbook and applies it consistently across all generated assets.\n\nBuilt-in render profiles for every major platform:\n\n| Profile | Resolution | Aspect Ratio |\n|---|---|---|\n| YouTube Landscape | 1920x1080 | 16:9 |\n| YouTube 4K | 3840x2160 | 16:9 |\n| YouTube Shorts | 1080x1920 | 9:16 |\n| Instagram Reels | 1080x1920 | 9:16 |\n| Instagram Feed | 1080x1080 | 1:1 |\n| TikTok | 1080x1920 | 9:16 |\n| 1920x1080 | 16:9 | |\n| Cinematic | 2560x1080 | 21:9 |\n\nOpenMontage treats video production like real engineering — with quality gates, audit trails, and enforcement at every stage.\n\n**Pre-compose validation**— blocks render if the delivery promise is violated (e.g. \"motion-led\" video with 80% still images), slideshow risk score is critical, or renderer family is missing. Catches broken plans before wasting GPU time.**Post-render self-review**— after every render, the runtime runs ffprobe validation, extracts frames at 4 positions to check for black frames and broken overlays, analyzes audio levels for silence and clipping, verifies the delivery promise was honored, and checks subtitle presence. If the review fails, the video is not presented.**Slideshow risk scoring**— 6-dimension analysis (repetition, decorative visuals, weak motion, shot intent, typography overreliance, unsupported cinematic claims) prevents \"animated PowerPoint\" outputs.**Source media inspection**— when users supply their own footage, the system probes every file (resolution, codec, audio channels, duration) and builds planning implications before a single creative decision is made. No hallucinating content from filenames.\n\nEvery tool selection (video generation, image generation, TTS, music) runs through a 7-dimension scoring engine: task fit (30%), output quality (20%), control features (15%), reliability (15%), cost efficiency (10%), latency (5%), continuity (5%). The winning provider and its score are logged in the decision trail with all alternatives considered.\n\nSelectors normalize loose brief context before scoring. If the agent only knows something like \"Pixar-style animated short with character consistency,\" the selector expands that into scorer-friendly intent and style signals instead of requiring a perfectly pre-shaped `task_context`\n\n.\n\nSelector outputs also surface the chosen provider's `agent_skills`\n\n, so the agent can immediately read the right Layer 3 provider skill before writing prompts.\n\nEvery major creative and technical choice — provider selection, style/playbook choice, music track, voice selection, renderer family, any fallback or downgrade — is logged with alternatives considered, confidence scores, and reasoning. The cumulative decision log persists across all stages so you can trace exactly why the output looks the way it does.\n\n**Estimate** before execution — see what it will cost**Reserve** budget — lock funds before the call**Reconcile** after — record actual spend**Configurable modes**—`observe`\n\n(track only),`warn`\n\n(log overruns),`cap`\n\n(hard limit)**Per-action approval**— pause for confirmation above a threshold (default: $0.50)** Total budget cap**— default $10, fully configurable\n\nNo surprise bills. The agent tells you what it will cost before it spends.\n\nOpenMontage works with any AI coding assistant that can read files and execute Python. Dedicated instruction files are included for:\n\n| Platform | Config File |\n|---|---|\nClaude Code |\n`CLAUDE.md` |\nCursor |\n`CURSOR.md` + `.cursor/rules/` |\nGitHub Copilot |\n`COPILOT.md` + `.github/copilot-instructions.md` |\nCodex |\n`CODEX.md` |\nWindsurf |\n`.windsurfrules` |\n\nAll platform files point to the shared `AGENT_GUIDE.md`\n\n(operating guide and agent contract) and `PROJECT_CONTEXT.md`\n\n(architecture reference).\n\nComing soon:Local LLM support viaOllamaandLM Studio— run the full production pipeline without any cloud LLM.\n\nOpenMontage is built to be extended. The two most common contributions:\n\n- Create a Python file in the appropriate\n`tools/`\n\nsubdirectory - Inherit from\n`BaseTool`\n\nand implement the tool contract - The registry auto-discovers it — no manual registration needed\n- Add a skill file if the tool needs usage guidance\n\n- Create a YAML manifest in\n`pipeline_defs/`\n\n- Create stage director skills in\n`skills/pipelines/<your-pipeline>/`\n\n- Reference existing tools — or add new ones if needed\n\nSee `docs/ARCHITECTURE.md`\n\nfor the full technical reference, `docs/PROVIDERS.md`\n\nfor the complete provider guide (setup, pricing, free tiers), and `AGENT_GUIDE.md`\n\nfor the agent contract.\n\nWe use [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/calesthio/OpenMontage/discussions) to share work and ideas:\n\n— Share videos you've made, prompts that worked well, or creative workflows you've discovered[Show and Tell](https://github.com/calesthio/OpenMontage/discussions/categories/show-and-tell)— Suggest new pipelines, tools, style playbooks, or integrations[Ideas](https://github.com/calesthio/OpenMontage/discussions/categories/ideas)— Ask questions about setup, pipelines, or troubleshooting[Q&A](https://github.com/calesthio/OpenMontage/discussions/categories/q-a)\n\nMade something cool? Post it in Show and Tell — we'd love to see what you build.\n\nFor updates, releases, and behind-the-scenes build notes, follow [@calesthioailabs](https://x.com/calesthioailabs).\n\nFor bugs, feature requests, and workflow discussions, use [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/calesthio/OpenMontage/issues) and [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/calesthio/OpenMontage/discussions) so everything stays visible and actionable.\n\n```\n# Run contract tests (no API keys needed)\nmake test-contracts\n\n# Run all tests\nmake test\n```\n\n**OpenMontage** — Production-grade video with real quality enforcement, orchestrated by your AI assistant.\n\nIf this project looks useful to you, a star would really mean a lot — it helps others discover it too.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openmontage-the-first-open-source-agentic-video-production-system", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/calesthio/OpenMontage", "published_at": "2026-06-18 23:08:38+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-18 23:31:00.404677+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "generative-ai"], "entities": ["OpenMontage", "Veo", "Kling", "fal.ai", "Google Chirp3", "OpenAI", "FLUX", "Remotion"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openmontage-the-first-open-source-agentic-video-production-system", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openmontage-the-first-open-source-agentic-video-production-system.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openmontage-the-first-open-source-agentic-video-production-system.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openmontage-the-first-open-source-agentic-video-production-system.jsonld"}}