v0.43.0: captions, motion, stickers, transitions, and shorts from a pile

clip.mp4

proofcut is an AI video editor that proves its cuts. It is an MCP server
over ffmpeg, whisper, MLT and OpenTimelineIO. An agent, the proofcut
command line, or the browser window takes your recordings and returns a
finished, mastered film: cut by transcript, with b-roll hung off the words,
cards, captions, and a score under the voice. It renders on your own machine,
then transcribes the render and checks that it says what the edit says.
It is source-available under PolyForm Shield 1.0.0: any use is allowed except
building a product that competes with it.

Since v0.38.0, the film can look like a short. Five releases of captions
that animate, graphics that move, stickers, transitions, and a way to turn a
pile of recordings into several shorts at once.

• A pile of recordings becomes several shorts. seed takes several
  recordings and lays them end to end, each with its silences cut. Cut the
  retakes once, then split the timeline by each short's first and last
  word. Every short becomes its own project beside the pile, holding only
  the recordings it uses. Two shorts sharing material, and any stretch no
  short took, are reported rather than refused.
• Captions reveal word by word. Each word can fade or blur in as it is
  spoken. A span of the film can have captions off, or a look of its own,
  such as one large word at a time. The project's list of words whisper
  mishears, and how each is spelled, now corrects what captions print, and a
  caption look can be saved and loaded into another project.
• Animated graphics. A graphic is a web page an agent writes or fills
  from a template (typing, a highlighter sweep, a letter build, chips),
  captured frame by frame by a headless browser and placed over a span of
  words. It animates in, holds as long as the span lasts, and animates out,
  so a cut never breaks one. proofcut setup installs the browser, and a
  saved graphic carries across projects.
• Stills and stickers. A photo goes in once, upright, whatever its
  camera said. It plays full frame, or rides over the film as a sticker:
  placed, sized, turned, framed as a photo card, popping or sliding in.
  Paste an image into the agent's prompt and it is added.
• Transitions between shots. A crossfade between two pieces of b-roll, a
  scale punch on a cut, and a vignette, all drawn in the preview as the
  render draws them.
• One agent per project. A second agent session is refused a project
  another one is editing, rather than both writing to it. proofcut unlock
  clears a session that died.

Where it runs. Linux is where proofcut was built and measured: from a
bare Ubuntu 24.04 and a bare Fedora 44, following only the docs, the demo
reached a verified render. Intel Mac: one person ran the test kit on
their own Mac, and it reached a checked render: all 34 words heard back, 289
of 289 frames, the master at −16.1 LUFS
(issue #6). Windows:
the author's laptop and GitHub's runner both take the demo to a checked
render, and nobody else has tried it yet
(issue #2). Apple
silicon: GitHub's arm64 runner installs proofcut with setup and takes the
demo to a checked render, on a machine that starts with none of the four
tools. No person has run it by hand, and that is still the report worth
having (issue #1). One
script runs the whole test and removes what it installed.

Start with docs/DEMO.md.
It takes two minutes and runs on media the repo generates itself, so there is
nothing to download and no licence question. If proofcut doctor shows a ✗
on your machine, that output is the most useful thing you can send.