{"slug": "show-hn-i-built-an-open-source-video-editor-that-you-can-control-with-an-llm", "title": "Show HN: I built an open source video editor that you can control with an LLM", "summary": "David, a solo developer, launched an open source video editor on Hacker News that can be controlled via an LLM, allowing novice to intermediate editors to use natural language commands instead of navigating complex interfaces. The project, built in three days with the help of LLMs, turns every button, toggle, and slider into a tool accessible to the LLM, and is available for feedback.", "body_md": "Hey HN, my name is David. I'm building an open source video editor.\n\nI'm a novice at video editing and previously only used iMovie. I recently opened iMovie to edit a video but noticed it didn't have some features I wanted, like text overlays. Apple probably hasn't updated it in ages. How hard could it be to build one?\n\nIt's actually pretty hard. There are so many basic things that need to get right, like behavior in the timeline, drag and drop, coloring, etc. Good thing there are LLMs. I was able to put out a simple version in 3 days and have continued to refine it ever since.\n\nThe idea is that it's focused on novice to intermediate video editors. I find modern video editors to be very overwhelming, with lots of features and controls. It's needed because video editing is a creative tool, and not everything can be built into one. So I turned every button, toggle, and slider into a tool that's accessible to an LLM. A user just needs to tell an LLM what to do, and it has access to tools that can control all aspects of the video editor.\n\nThe project is 100% open source, and I continue to refine it every day. I'm working solo on this and would love to get feedback if you have any.\n\nDavid\n\nComments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384105](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384105)\n\nPoints: 1\n\n# Comments: 0", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-i-built-an-open-source-video-editor-that-you-can-control-with-an-llm", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/DonkeyCut/Donkey", "published_at": "2026-08-21 05:19:27+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-21 05:44:22.431764+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "generative-ai", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["David", "Hacker News", "iMovie", "Apple"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-i-built-an-open-source-video-editor-that-you-can-control-with-an-llm", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-i-built-an-open-source-video-editor-that-you-can-control-with-an-llm.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-i-built-an-open-source-video-editor-that-you-can-control-with-an-llm.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-i-built-an-open-source-video-editor-that-you-can-control-with-an-llm.jsonld"}}