PySceneDetect — guide skill for cuts & pacing
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Find cuts, fades and scene changes in a video, then split it or export scene lists for the edit.
- Type: Guide · Cuts & pacing
- Slug:
pyscenedetect - Status: live
- Publisher: Brandon Castellano (community)
- License: BSD-3-Clause
- Source: https://github.com/Breakthrough/PySceneDetect
- Works in: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor
- Cost: Free/open source
- Adoption: 5,298 GitHub stars (GitHub, 2026-10-27)
What it does
A Python CLI and library that detects shot boundaries with content, adaptive or threshold detectors, writes scene lists and stats, and can split the video into scenes with ffmpeg. A standard first step for agents that need to index footage before choosing shots.
Use when
- split footage into shots
- index B-roll before an agent picks shots
- detect fade-to-black transitions
Install
- Claude Code:
pip install scenedetect --upgrade
More cuts & pacing skills
- SmartCut (capcut-ai-editor): MCP that reads CapCut auto-captions to cut silences and duplicate takes right inside your CapCut project.
- Auto-Editor: CLI that cuts dead space by loudness or motion and exports MP4 or editor timelines; now also an agent skill.
- AutoCut: Edit video in a text editor: Whisper transcribes, you delete lines in Markdown, AutoCut cuts the video.
- Cut Video: Claude Code skill that tightens long recordings with forced-aligned cuts, keeping laughs and comedic pauses.
- Videogrep: Search spoken words across videos and auto-build supercuts of every match.
- video-editing-skill (Bash + FFmpeg): Pure Bash skill for OpenClaw, Claude Code and Codex: trim, jump cut, captions, text overlay, speed.