showtime 0.4.0

showtime 0.4.0: videos that ask, notes on the finished video, a stricter quality gate, and a showreel mode that won its blind rematch. Every change, with its reasons and limits, is in CHANGELOG.md under 0.4.0; the README has a short "New in 0.4.0".

Videos that ask, and notes on the finished video

• Videos that stop and ask. showtime.json "questions": the HTML export pauses on the question's frame, asks, marks the answer, replies and plays on. The MP4 gets a "pause and think" beat (the question-beat component, F.questionBeat on canvas). A question can sit on a narration line, so a re-voice moves it with the line. check names question problems.
• Notes on the finished video. showtime review open <job> serves a local page over the latest render: pause, click a spot or drag a box, type. The agent reads them with showtime review notes, fixes, and replies on the same note.
• Range links in the HTML player: video.html#t=10-20 plays that part on a loop.

New ways in

• showtime pr-video <N | URL>: a pull request becomes a short video for its own description, with a copy under GitHub's 10 MB limit. A public PR works without a GitHub login. Values that look like secrets are masked before anything is written.
• showtime new <template> <dir> --from-storyboard FILE: a storyboard table from another skill becomes a project.
• The showreel tone for "showreel" or "go all out" briefs: 12-14 shots per 15 s, no technique twice, flash words, the name landing late and short. qa judges density, the ending and repeats. The showreel template renders at 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 and 4:5.

A stricter quality gate

• The critic watches as a first-time viewer before it reads the brief. Explainers default to a cold open, a roadmap, bridges and a close that answers the opening.
• Critic findings gate delivery. A Blocker or Should-fix must be fixed or waived with a reason (showtime review-respond). job note --stage deliver also refuses when the delivered final's latest qa is a FAIL. deliver exports and deliver poster write their files but record the delivery only through the same gate.
• A hearing pass next to the visual critic. One delivery card with a mandatory Look: line.

Better-looking by default

• Twelve look signatures for the page templates, picked away from your recent videos.
• Every <video> is drawn on a canvas in renders: no blank or late first frames after a cut.

Also in this release

• MCP tool schemas checked against the command line, and one dated price table.
• Messages are read before building, and renders clean up after themselves.

Proof

• A behaviour scoreboard anyone can rerun (claude plugin eval, 14 cases × 3 runs per arm): 35/42 with showtime, 25/42 without (SCOREBOARD.md).
• A blind rematch on the round-1 showreel prompt (rounds 5 and 6). 0.4.0 lost round 5. After the density fix, its two takes ranked first and second in round 6, ahead of the plain take that won round 1. There was one voter and the vote was only partly blind.

Fixed before release (found by making the 0.4.0 release video with showtime itself):

• A long single-word choice spilled out of its box in the question beat. The revealed answer's key letter missed contrast on light themes. Labels were too small upright.
• In a pairwise round, the losing version's findings still held the review through the old caption rule.
• retime --from-voice dropped the first line's lead-in.
• job note --stage deliver passed on a qa FAIL.
• pr-video run inside a job folder logged its render into that job.

Testing

• Full suite: 64/64 test files pass on Linux x64 (16 at a time).
• check_release: 0 errors.
• The showreel template passes check with no warnings at 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 and 4:5.
• CI: fast tiers on macOS, Linux and Windows and end-to-end runs on macOS 14, Linux Arm, Windows Server 2025 and Windows 11 on Arm, all green.

The release video (2:00) is attached: showtime-0.4.0-release-video.mp4, made with showtime 0.4.0.