smabdulmueid97/long-to-short-video

A Claude Code skill that turns one long video into short vertical clips for YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, TikTok, Bilibili, LinkedIn, and X.
One long video → 5–10 standalone shorts. Each clip must make sense with no context from the long video.
## Install (30 seconds)
bash
git clone https://github.com/smabdulmueid97/long-to-short-video.git
./install.sh
# copies this skill to ~/.claude/skills/long-to-short-video/
Or manually: copy SKILL.md to ~/.claude/skills/long-to-short-video/SKILL.md.
Requires only ffmpeg for cutting: brew install ffmpeg / apt install ffmpeg.
## Use it
turn this 40-minute tutorial into 5 shorts for Shorts, Reels and TikTok
The skill finds the best moments, writes hooks + captions, and shows you a clip plan to approve before cutting — cutting is the expensive part.
## The rules of a good clip
1. One idea per clip. If it needs "as I said earlier", it's not a clip.
2. Hook in the first 2 seconds. A question, a bold claim, or a result.
3. Length: 30–60 seconds is the sweet spot, 90 seconds max for a universal clip. Ceilings (checked Oct–Nov 2026): Shorts ≤3 min, Reels recommended ≤3 min to new audiences, X free ≤2:20, LinkedIn 30–120 s best, Bilibili vertical 3–15 min sweet spot.
4. Captions burned in. Most people watch muted. Big, high-contrast, centred, inside the safe zone.
5. Vertical first. Master export: 9:16, 1080×1920, H.264 MP4 + AAC, 30 fps.
## Cut with ffmpeg
bash
./scripts/make-clips.sh input.mp4 clips.csv
# clips.csv: clip-name,start,end (one per line, e.g. invoice-trick,00:12:04,00:12:58)
Outputs 9:16, 1080×1920 clips, loudness normalised to −14 LUFS. See templates/clip-plan.md for the plan format.
## Rules
This skill plans and cuts from a video you provide. It does not generate video.
No clip that only makes sense inside the long video.
No posting the clips itself — hand over the files + the post pack.
No copyrighted music from one platform's library on another platform.