YouTube Shorts Generator
Long video → ranked vertical short clips, tuned for short-form social.
This skill is a platform-aware preset over the AI Clipping primitive. It picks the right aspect ratio and clip count for the target platform and delegates highlight extraction, dedupe, and face-tracked auto-crop to muapi.ai's managed /ai-clipping endpoint.
Reference implementation: https://github.com/SamurAIGPT/AI-Youtube-Shorts-Generator Underlying API: https://muapi.ai/playground/ai-clipping
When to Use This vs. AI Clipping
Agent Execution Protocol
Step 1 — Collect Inputs
If the user gave only a URL, run with platform defaults — don't block.
Step 2 — Verify Prerequisites
muapi-cliinstalled and authed (muapi auth configure)MUAPI_API_KEYavailable
That's it. Transcription, highlight ranking, dedupe, and cropping all run server-side — no ffmpeg, no Python, no Whisper, no LLM keys needed locally.
Step 3 — Run the Pipeline
The script:
- Resolves the source (uploads local files to muapi CDN if needed).
- Picks platform defaults if
--aspect-ratio/--num-clipsaren't passed. - Calls
muapi edit clipping(the/ai-clippingendpoint) with the chosen params. - Polls until done, prints a ranked summary, optionally downloads / opens clips.
What Happens Server-Side
The /ai-clipping endpoint runs the full pipeline:
- Transcribes the audio.
- Ranks highlights through a virality framework — hook moments, emotional peaks, opinion bombs, revelation moments, conflict, quotable lines, story peaks, practical value.
- Dedupes overlapping candidates by score.
- Top-N selects and face-tracks vertical crops.
Each clip ships with score (0–100), opening hook line, and a one-sentence "why it works" reason.
Platform Defaults
Override any default with --aspect-ratio / --num-clips.
Quick Invocation Patterns
Single video, defaults:
TikTok preset — 5 clips, view in player:
Square Instagram feed clips:
Batch — urls.txt with one URL per line:
Async submit (returns request_id, poll later):
Output Schema
When reporting back, surface for each clip: rank, score, time range, title, hook, and clip URL.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Wrong aspect ratio for the platform — Shorts / TikTok / Reels are
9:16. The platform preset handles this; only override if you know why. - Padding to hit
--num-clips— if the API returns fewer survivors, return what you have. Don't ship low-score filler. - Re-running on a 404'd clip URL — re-fetch the same
request_idwithmuapi predict wait <id>rather than re-clipping.
Failure Modes
- API key missing or rejected — surface the error; don't fabricate a key.
- Job timed out — bump
--poll-timeoutand retry. - Source URL not reachable — upload the file via
muapi upload fileand pass the returned URL. - Fewer clips returned than requested — source had fewer rankable highlights. Return what came back with a note.
Done Criteria
The skill is done when:
result.shortshas up tonum_clipsentries, each with a workingclip_url.- The user has been shown the ranked list (score, time range, title, hook, URL).
- If
--output-jsonwas set, the file exists and parses.

