Capture a general website/URL and turn it into a HyperFrames video (site tour, showcase, or social clip from the site's own visuals). Uses headless Chrome screenshots + brand assets. Use when intent is general — portfolio/blog/landing-page showcase or social clip from the site. NOT for: product/SaaS launch or promo (→ /product-launch-video, even from a URL); topic explainer with no site (→ /faceless-explainer); GitHub PR (→ /pr-to-video); adding captions to existing video (→ /embedded-captions);
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/calesthio/openmontage --skill website-to-videomedia-use: Before sourcing audio/images, call
/media-useto resolve BGM/SFX/images from the HeyGen catalog. Run--adoptfirst to register existing assets. See/media-useskill.
Website to HyperFrames
Capture a website, then produce a professional video from it.
Confirm the route before Step 0. This skill makes a video of / from a general site. If the user is really marketing / launching / promoting a product (even from this URL, even "promo for our site") →
/product-launch-video. A topic explainer with no site →/faceless-explainer; a GitHub PR →/pr-to-video; re-cutting / recoloring / reordering an existing video file → out of scope. Routed here on a vague "make a video", or unsure launch-vs-general-site? Read/hyperframesfirst (full routing table + § What HyperFrames cannot do).
Users say things like:
- "Turn this website into a 15-second social clip for Instagram"
- "Make a 30-second site tour / showcase from https://..."
- "Capture our homepage and build a video from its own visuals"
The workflow has 7 steps. Each produces an artifact that gates the next. By default it's collaborative — gates marked 💬 stop and ask the user. If the user signals autonomous mode ("decide for me", "surprise me"), 💬 user-preference gates are skipped; see step-2-brief.md for how that propagates.
Autonomous mode is NOT "skip all gates." Auto mode covers user-preference questions (TTS provider, voice, color emphasis, beat count, music yes/no, captions yes/no — where the agent decides on the user's behalf). It does NOT cover quality-verification gates. The following remain non-skippable in auto mode:
- Asset Audit (Step 3) — viewing contact sheets and justifying USE/SKIP for each asset
- Per-beat HTML read (Step 5) — structured evidence block per beat
- DoD checklist (Step 6) — including animation-map, per-warning WCAG verification, audio/motion playback
- Honest disclosure section (Step 6) — "What I did NOT verify" must appear in your final summary
If you find yourself reasoning "auto mode says bias toward action, so I'll skip X" — and X is a verification gate, not a preference question — that reasoning is wrong. Bias toward action applies to deciding what to build, not to deciding whether to verify.
Step 0: Capture & Understand the Brand
Read: references/step-0-capture.md
Capture the site, then read the extracted data to understand the brand and product — what it does, who it's for, what voice it speaks in, what mood it lives in. The captured assets are a brand toolkit for later, not the building blocks the video is made from.
Show sign-in status before the brief — run npx hyperframes auth status and relay its output verbatim (don't paraphrase or rewrite it). It reports whether voice/BGM will use HeyGen or local engines and, when not signed in, how to sign in. If not signed in, STOP and wait for the user to choose — sign in, or say "go"/"offline" to continue with local engines — before asking the brief or anything else. Treat it as a real decision point, not a passing note; don't fold the choice into the brief question, and don't write keys into a per-repo .env. (In autonomous mode, note the status and continue offline.) See ../hyperframes-media → Preflight for the canonical guidance.
Gate: Site summary printed — strategy-first (what the product does, who it's for, brand voice) before the asset / color / font inventory; sign-in status was shown (signed in, or continuing offline).
Step 1: Brand Identity
Read: references/step-1-design.md
Write DESIGN.md — a brand cheat sheet covering the visual identity: colors, typography, component styles, layout principles. Use design-styles.json for exact computed values.
Speed option: For fast-pacing videos (billboard-per-beat), DESIGN.md can be a 50-line summary of colors + fonts + do's/don'ts — not a 300-line document. The sub-agent prompt in Step 5 pastes brand values directly, so DESIGN.md depth only matters for complex compositions.
Gate: DESIGN.md exists (any length) with at minimum: color palette, font choices, and do's/don'ts.
Step 2: Strategy & Messaging
Read: references/step-2-brief.md, references/capabilities.md (scan the Table of Contents — deep-dive sections only as needed)
Align with the user on what the video must communicate before talking visuals or assets. Parse the user's prompt — they probably already gave you the video type and style. Ask only what's missing: the ONE thing this video must say, the narrative arc, and the audience.
Gate: Video type, duration, format, and — critically — the message and narrative arc are locked. Without those, Step 3 can't write a concept-first storyboard.
Step 3: Storyboard + Script 💬
Read: references/step-3-storyboard.md
Write the storyboard concept-first: message → narrative arc → beats that serve the arc → techniques per beat → brand accents pass at the end. Then write the narration script to match. Present both to the user with a beat-by-beat summary. Iterate until they approve.
Gate: STORYBOARD.md + SCRIPT.md exist AND the user has approved the plan.
Step 4: VO, Timing + Captions 💬
Read: references/step-4-vo.md
If Step 2 said no narration — ask about background music, then skip to Step 5. Otherwise: ask the user which TTS provider (HeyGen TTS, ElevenLabs, or Kokoro), generate audio, transcribe, map timestamps to beats. Then ask about captions.
Gate: Either (a) no narration was requested and storyboard has manual beat timings, or (b) narration.wav + transcript.json exist and beat timings updated with real durations.
Step 5: Build Compositions
Read: The hyperframes skill (load it — every rule matters)
Read: references/step-5-build.md
Build index.html and compositions following the architecture and pacing chosen in the storyboard (Step 3). Sub-agents run hyperframes lint and hyperframes snapshot on each beat before reporting back.
Gate: Every compositions/beat-N.html has been read top-to-bottom by the main agent against DESIGN.md and STORYBOARD.md. The per-beat checklist lives in step-5-build.md.
Step 6: Validate & Deliver
Read: references/step-6-validate.md
Lint, validate, take snapshots scaled to video length (formula: max(beats × 3, ceil(duration_seconds / 2))), and review each one. Fix issues before delivering. Deliver the localhost Studio project URL — only render to MP4 on explicit user request. Surface that Studio URL only at handoff — it is the final, stable preview; the build-phase snapshots are headless, so do not pop a preview mid-build.
Deliver something you're proud of. Before handing off, ask yourself: would I post this on social media with my name on it? If not, fix what's wrong.
Gate: npx hyperframes lint and npx hyperframes validate pass with zero errors, and the final response includes the active Studio project URL.
Quick Reference
Video Types
Typical constraints by video type — use as a starting point, not a formula. Beat count should follow from the content and the narration, not from a target range.
| Type | Typical duration | Duration driver | Narration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social ad (IG/TikTok) | 10–15s | Platform limit | Optional |
| Product demo | 30–60s | Script length | Full narration |
| Feature announcement | 15–30s | Feature complexity | Full narration |
| Brand reel | 20–45s | Music track | Optional, music focus |
| Launch teaser | 10–20s | Hook energy | Minimal |
Beat count is not in this table intentionally — it should come from the storyboard, not from "social ad = 3-4 beats." A social ad for a complex product might need 5 well-timed beats. A brand reel with one strong visual thesis might need 3.
Format
- Landscape: 1920x1080 (default)
- Portrait: 1080x1920 (Instagram Stories, TikTok)
- Square: 1080x1080 (Instagram feed)
Reference Files
| File | When to read |
|---|---|
| step-0-capture.md | Step 0 — capture, understand the brand and product, write strategy-first site summary |
| step-1-design.md | Step 1 — write DESIGN.md brand cheat sheet (5 sections, 250-350 lines; 50-line fast-path for billboard-style social ads) |
| step-2-brief.md | Step 2 — align on message, narrative arc, audience with user |
| capabilities.md | Steps 2 & 5 — full inventory of what HyperFrames can do (24 sections). Scan the TOC during the brief, deep-dive specific sections during build |
| step-3-storyboard.md | Step 3 — storyboard + script (combined) with user review gate |
| step-4-vo.md | Step 4 — TTS provider choice, generation, timing |
| step-5-build.md | Step 5 — build index.html + compositions |
| step-6-validate.md | Step 6 — lint, validate, snapshots (scaled to video length), preview |
| techniques.md | Steps 3 & 5 — 13 primitive animation techniques with code patterns (adapt, don't copy-paste) |
| html-in-canvas-patterns.md | Step 5 — complete code patterns for HTML-in-Canvas effects (lives in the hyperframes skill) |