commit-haiku

A Claude Code skill that turns a git commit into a short dramatic video — reads the entire diff, distills it into a 5-7-5 haiku, then calls Google's Veo (via the Gemini API) to generate a dramatized reading with cinematic visuals and audio.

Example

For commit c9c2570 ("WebGPU: wire scene lights into material pipelines"):

Dark meshes awake
first light crosses every wire
shadows learn to fall

→ 8-second MP4 of a dark industrial hall, overhead conduits filling with traveling amber light, sculptures lit one by one, a narrator reading the haiku.

▶ examples/commit-haiku-c9c2570.mp4

Install

This skill is installed by copying its files into your user skills directory.

$dest = "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills\commit-haiku"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force $dest | Out-Null
Copy-Item .\SKILL.md, .\generate_video.py $dest

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/commit-haiku
cp SKILL.md generate_video.py ~/.claude/skills/commit-haiku/

Restart Claude Code (or open a new session); the skill registers automatically from its frontmatter.

Requirements

• Python 3.11+ (uses stdlib only — no pip install step).
• A Gemini API key with Veo access. Get one at https://aistudio.google.com/apikey.

API key setup (one-time)

The helper resolves the key from this chain (first hit wins):

1. --api-key <KEY> CLI flag
2. --api-key-file <PATH> CLI flag
3. $GEMINI_API_KEY env var (recommended — matches the official google-genai SDK)
4. $GOOGLE_API_KEY env var
5. ~/.claude/skills/commit-haiku/.api-key (user-level file colocated with the skill)
6. ./gemini.txt in the cwd (legacy — kept for back-compat)

Pick one and you're done:

# PowerShell — persisted user env var
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("GEMINI_API_KEY", "<KEY>", "User")

# OR a user-level file (no shell restart needed)
"<KEY>" | Out-File -Encoding ascii -NoNewline `
  "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills\commit-haiku\.api-key"

# bash — env var
echo 'export GEMINI_API_KEY=<KEY>' >> ~/.zshrc  # or ~/.bashrc

# OR a user-level file
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/commit-haiku
echo -n '<KEY>' > ~/.claude/skills/commit-haiku/.api-key

Usage

From inside any git repo:

/commit-haiku

Or:

haiku my last commit
make a commit haiku for HEAD~3
/commit-haiku abc1234

Claude reads the diff, writes the haiku, shows it to you alongside the full Veo prompt, then kicks off the helper in the background. The MP4 lands at ./commit-haiku-<shortsha>.mp4 after ~1 minute (Veo 3 Fast) or 3–6 minutes (Veo 3).

For higher visual quality, say "make it higher quality" — the skill will switch to veo-3.0-generate-001.

How it works

1. Claude (in-conversation) runs git show --stat + git show against the ref, reads the message and the patch, and writes the haiku. The haiku-writing is not an API call — it uses the model that's already running in your Claude Code session.
2. Claude composes a Veo prompt that pairs a single dramatic visual scene with the haiku as quoted dialogue (Veo 3 reads quoted text verbatim as spoken lines).
3. generate_video.py submits the prompt to the Gemini predictLongRunning endpoint, polls until the operation completes, and streams the resulting MP4 from the Files API to disk.

Standalone use

generate_video.py works on its own if you just want to call Veo:

python generate_video.py `
  --prompt 'A lighthouse beam sweeping across a dark sea at dawn. Narrator: "Lonely light, awake."' `
  --output .\out.mp4

usage: generate_video.py [-h] --prompt PROMPT [--model MODEL] [--output OUTPUT]
                         [--api-key API_KEY] [--api-key-file API_KEY_FILE]
                         [--poll-seconds POLL_SECONDS]
                         [--timeout-seconds TIMEOUT_SECONDS]
                         [--aspect-ratio ASPECT_RATIO]

Defaults: --model veo-3.0-fast-generate-001, --output ./haiku.mp4, --aspect-ratio 16:9, --poll-seconds 10, --timeout-seconds 900.

Cost

Approximate Gemini API pricing for an 8-second clip:

Model	Per-second	Per 8s clip
veo-3.0-fast-generate-001	low	a few cents
veo-3.0-generate-001	higher	a few dimes

Check the Gemini API pricing page for current numbers.

Files

• SKILL.md — the skill manifest Claude Code loads. Frontmatter declares the trigger phrases; the body is the prompt Claude follows when invoked.
• generate_video.py — the Veo client. Zero pip deps (stdlib urllib only).

License

MIT