git:20260914.90327eb to git:20260914.b08b82d

- Orientation for an agent that has just been pointed at this repository. `README.md` is the long form,

- `METHOD.md` is the whole method in the order it runs, and `CHAIN.md` is the handoff contract. This file

- is what you need before the first action.

- Each skill is a `SKILL.md` with its steps and completion criteria, a `references/` directory holding the

- contracts and the measurements, and a `scripts/` directory of small Python and shell tools. **Every

- script prints its usage on `--help` and changes nothing when asked.** Scripts that work inside a project

- take its folder as `--root <project>`.

-

- The skills are plain `SKILL.md` files and work in any agent that reads that format — Claude Code and

- Codex both do. The scripts are plain Python and bash and need no agent at all.

- ## Install — do this first

- ```bash

- ./install.sh # links skills/* into ~/.claude/skills/

- ./install.sh ~/.agents/skills # Codex: links into BOTH ~/.claude/skills/ and ~/.agents/skills/

- ```

- **Both links are required, whichever agent you run.** 24 files inside the skills call

- `~/.claude/skills/<skill>/…` by absolute path, so that link is load-bearing even when your agent loads

- its skills from somewhere else. The installer always writes the `~/.claude/skills/` link and adds any

- folder you name as an argument. It is re-runnable, and it leaves alone anything that exists and is not a

- symlink.

- Codex discovers skills under `.agents/skills` and `$HOME/.agents/skills`, and invokes one with

- `$<skill-name>`. Claude Code discovers them under `~/.claude/skills`.

- Base requirements: Python 3.10 or newer with `numpy`, `Pillow`, `scipy` and `PyYAML`, plus

- [ffmpeg](https://ffmpeg.org/download.html). On Windows, run the kit inside WSL2.

- ## Keys

- Copy `.env.example` to `.env` (git ignores it) and fill in only the vendors you use. That file names

- every key and variable the kit reads and what each one is for — it is the single place for all of them.

- Scripts read keys from the process environment, never from the file, so load it in the same command that

- needs it:

- set -a; . ~/.claude/skills/video-production/../../.env; set +a

- **A key never goes into a skill, a prompt, a receipt or a command line.**

-

- ## The one decision that changes your setup plan

- Three steps want a GPU of your own. Which ones you can run is decided by VRAM, not by whether a GPU

- exists. Settle this before installing anything heavy — it determines which sections of `README.md` you

- should ignore outright.

- | what you have | what runs locally |

- |---|---|

- | **24 GB NVIDIA** | everything, but local generation holds the whole card |

- | **~11 GB NVIDIA** | the local *finish* (Topaz, Dehancer) fits; local *generation* does not |

- | **under ~11 GB**, or **any AMD/Intel card or APU** | treat as no-local-GPU: every generation route is hosted anyway |

- On an APU the VRAM is carved out of system RAM, so 4 GB of it also costs you 4 GB of the RAM everything

- else wants. On a 16 GB machine that is the binding constraint, not the GPU.

- **In the no-local-GPU case**, ignore the README's ComfyUI, MiniMax H3 and Topaz sections, leave every

- `COMFY_*`, `TOPAZ_*` and `TVAI_*` variable unset, and know that five scripts cannot run

- (`comfy_up.sh`, `comfy_ready.py`, `scene_blockout.py`, `upscale_local.sh`, `topaz_upscale.py`). Nothing

- else calls them. You keep all fifteen skills, every generation route, the whole finish chain and the

- look library — applying a look is an ffmpeg `lut3d` filter.

- One *method* changes, not just a tool: without `scene_blockout.py` you cannot compute a room from a

- keeper frame, so the geometry for a new angle is read off that frame at 2–4× zoom and copied into the

- prompt verbatim, and the GO ask says "no scene proxy for this shot".

- `tools/resolve-pass/` is a separate axis: it needs Windows, DaVinci Resolve **Studio** and a Dehancer

- licence whether or not you have a card. Resolve's free edition cannot drive it — external scripting is

- Studio-only — and on free Resolve the export is CPU-only, so hardware encoding sits idle. Without the

- pass a look still applies as a LUT; what you lose is halation, bloom, grain and gate weave.

- ## The rules that bind every turn

- These hold whatever the phase. The full table with its enforcement points is

- `skills/video-production/references/STANDING-RULES.md`.

- - 🔴 **A cost line and the operator's explicit GO come before any billed call** — video, image, music,

- TTS, STT, clone, hosted upscale. The amount does not matter.

- - 🔴 **Nothing is upscaled before the operator has approved the take.**

- - 🔴 **The refs gate runs in code before every generation call.**

- - 🔴 **The client's text is the single source of truth.** Additions are proposed as cost lines, never

- assumed.

- - **Continuity is the first acceptance test**, before the gag. The start image is the previous shot's

- last state.

- - **Never resubmit a billed job. `COMPLETED` is not success.** Receipts keep the raw reply.

- - **Masters are 1080p only**; at most 30 MiB in chat, otherwise the path.

- - **Decisions go to the operator as numbered plain questions** with the cost and the full path inline.

- - **Invoke a skill at the phase it governs — never work from a recalled version of it.** Installed skills

- can move under a long task; re-read one whose revision moved.

- - **A number in a skill is a default until the project confirms it.** A measurement holds for the model,

- venue, version and date it was taken on.

- - **Install the dependency or ask — never a lazy workaround.**

- - **Destructive ops: the operator names the exact target, one command per target, alone.** Project trees

- have no VCS, so write a `.bak` first.

- - **One background waiter at a time.** Poll, never follow. A missing sentinel is a failure.

- - **Capture a command's verdict on the same line as its invocation, never through a pipe** — `cmd | tail`

- returns tail's exit code.

- - **A plan step earns a cheap verification immediately before it runs.** A written plan is a set of

- hypotheses, not instructions to execute on trust.

- Start with the `video-production` entry skill and name the project root and the genre. It reads the

- project's pause block, prints a status line and hands off to the phase that owns the next step. The

- phases run downhill, each with its own gate:

- → the sound → designed elements → the finish and QC → the client round.