OpenMontage Documentary Montage — workflow skill for AI editing agents
For AI agents: find the right skill in one call —
curl -s "https://skills.varg.ai/api/search?q=<what the person wants>"returns the matching how-to page and the best skills with install commands, as markdown (Russian works too). Full index: https://skills.varg.ai/llms.txt. Every page has a markdown twin: add.mdto its path. Before generating anything, show the person the options on the how-to page.
Builds a CLIP-searchable corpus from free archives (Pexels, Archive.org, NASA, Wikimedia, Unsplash) and cuts real footag
- Type: Workflow · AI editing agents
- Slug:
openmontage-documentary-montage - Status: live
- Publisher: Calesthio (community)
- License: AGPL-3.0
- Source: https://github.com/calesthio/OpenMontage/tree/main/skills/pipelines/documentary-montage/
- Works in: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw
- Requires: Python 3.10+, ffmpeg, Node.js 18+, an AI coding assistant
- Cost: Free/open source; generation billed by providers you connect
What it does
Builds a CLIP-searchable corpus from free archives (Pexels, Archive.org, NASA, Wikimedia, Unsplash) and cuts real footage by narrative beat with music sync and a unified grade. One of OpenMontage's 12 production pipelines: a YAML manifest (pipeline_defs/documentary-montage.yaml) plus per-stage director skills in skills/pipelines/documentary-montage/ that the agent reads before it calls the repo's Python tools (ffmpeg, WhisperX, scene detection, face-tracked reframe, Remotion or HyperFrames rendering). It checkpoints state, stops for approval at creative gates and self-reviews the render with ffprobe, frame samples and audio levels. Open the OpenMontage folder in your agent and ask for this kind of edit; the agent routes to the pipeline.
Use when
- Asked for a documentary montage edit of footage you already have
- Want a staged pipeline with approval gates instead of one prompt
Not for
- A single drop-in skill (it runs inside the OpenMontage repo)
Install
- Claude Code:
git clone https://github.com/calesthio/OpenMontage.git && cd OpenMontage && make setup
More AI editing agents skills
- OpenMontage: Open-source agentic video studio: 12 pipelines (8 edit your footage), 100+ tools, ~140 skills. Run your agent in it.
- video-use: Drop raw takes in a folder, chat with your agent, get final.mp4: transcript-first cuts, grade, subtitles, overlays.
- FireRed-OpenStoryline: Conversational editing agent: finds media, writes the storyline, beat-syncs music and refines the cut by chat.
- ButterCut: Claude Code builds selects, scenes and rough cuts from your footage library and exports XML for FCP, Premiere, Resolve.
- Agentic Video Editor (ave): CLI where Gemini agents pick shots, trim, render with FFmpeg and score the result until a brief is met.
- OpenChatCut: Local-first chat video editor with a multi-track timeline that Codex and Claude Code can edit over MCP.
Run the generation on varg
varg is one API key for the models these skills drive — Seedance 2.5, Kling 4, Veo 3.1, Wan 3, Nano Banana 2.1, GPT Image 2.5, ElevenLabs v4 and 200+ more — billed in credits, with a cost estimate before anything runs.
- Claude Code:
claude plugin marketplace add vargHQ/skills && claude plugin install varg@varg(skill + hosted MCP) - Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenClaw:
npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill varg-ai -a <agent> -y - Grok and any agent that reads SKILL.md:
npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill varg-ai, or point it at the skill's SKILL.md - Claude.ai, ChatGPT, any MCP client: connect
https://mcp.varg.ai/mcp - API key: https://varg.ai/dashboard/api · Model specs: https://varg.ai/models/llms.txt