Mortiflix

A motion design studio on your own machine.
Claude makes the video step by step. You approve every stage.

> [!WARNING] > **Postiz has been removed from Mortiflix.** On October 21, 2026, Railway had a security breach that affects > sensitive applications like Postiz, the free, open-source publishing service Mortiflix offered. If you set up > Postiz, revoke its API key in Postiz and check the social accounts you connected to it. > > From now on, Mortiflix publishes through **[Upload-Post](https://upload-post.com)** only. You make an account with > them, and it has a **free plan** ($0/mo, 10 uploads a month), so you can start without paying. See > [Publishing](#publishing-optional).

▶ Watch: How to use Mortiflix (3:07). This video was made with Mortiflix.

--- Most "AI video" tools are one prompt and a slot machine. Mortiflix works like a real motion design studio: a brief, a script, style frames, a transition board, an animatic, a final, and **you review each stage** before the next one starts. You pin a note on the exact spot of a frame or the exact moment of a video. The next version answers every note, one by one, and shows you what changed. It's built for **one person**: you write the briefs, you review every stage, and the studio runs on your machine. The work is done by Claude through **your own Claude Code login or your own Anthropic API key**. Mortiflix is the harness around it: the pipelines, the gates, the review room, and the memory that carries a project across sessions and days. ``` brief ──▶ script ──▶ style frames ──▶ animatic ──▶ build ──▶ final ──▶ delivered ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ └── you ───┴──── you ───┴───── you ────┴──────── you ────────┘ approve, pin notes, answer questions (the session stops at every gate) ``` ## Why it's built this way - **Sessions end at gates.** A Claude session works until it has something for you to review, submits it, writes a handoff and stops. When you respond, a fresh session picks up from the journal. Waiting on you costs nothing, for hours or for days. - **The rules live in code, not in the prompt.** Only you can approve a step you review. A submission is refused if it doesn't report every error check for its kind of work, or if it doesn't answer each note you left on the last version. What you reviewed is copied out of the session's reach, so it can't change afterwards. - **It learns your studio.** When you point out a real mistake, the session proposes a new check ("text never touches the frame edge"). Approve it once and every future video runs it. Your taste carries across projects in `TASTE.md`. - **Pipelines are folders.** A pipeline is a `pipeline.json` (steps, how each is reviewed, the error checks), a `PIPELINE.md` (the craft), and skills. Anyone can write one: that's the point of open-sourcing it. ## Quick start > **Tested mostly on Linux so far.** A Windows version is coming in the next two weeks (by October 20, 2026): the > installer is ready, sessions are next ([docs/WINDOWS.md](docs/WINDOWS.md)). macOS should mostly work but hasn't > been tested yet. You need **Node 20+** and **ffmpeg**. For real videos you also need one of: - [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code), logged in (your plan pays), or - an [Anthropic API key](https://console.anthropic.com/) (you pay per token). ```sh git clone https://github.com/GTKottman/mortiflix-oss.git && cd mortiflix-oss npm install npm link # puts `mortiflix` on your PATH (or use: node bin/mortiflix) mortiflix init # makes the studio folder (~/Mortiflix) and picks a backend it finds mortiflix setup # the walkthrough: Claude, narration, music, assets, 3D (asks before installing anything) mortiflix demo # a full walk-through with placeholder work: free, no Claude needed ``` Then either: **A. In the terminal** ```sh mortiflix new explainer # asks the brief's questions mortiflix run # sessions run until something waits on you mortiflix review # read the note, answer questions, pin notes, approve or ask for changes mortiflix run # ...and so on until it's delivered ``` **B. In the browser** ```sh mortiflix serve # http://127.0.0.1:4646 ``` The web studio shows what's waiting on you, a live log of what Claude is doing, and the review room: click a frame to pin a note, pause a video to note a moment, comment on a paragraph of the script, answer the session's questions, and approve. Sessions start by themselves while `serve` runs. To use it from another device, run `mortiflix serve --host 0.0.0.0`: you then get a private link with an access token (put it behind HTTPS if it leaves your network). **C. In Claude Code** ``` /plugin marketplace add GTKottman/mortiflix-oss /plugin install mortiflix@mortiflix /mortiflix ``` `/mortiflix` walks you through all of it in the conversation. It installs the CLI if you don't have it, then covers setup, the demo, a new video's brief, and running the studio. At each gate it shows you what the session sent, opens the frames and videos, and turns what you say into pinned notes. It reads them back to you before sending. Jump straight to a part with `/mortiflix demo`, `/mortiflix new explainer`, `/mortiflix review`, `/mortiflix status` or `/mortiflix setup`. If another plugin also has a `/mortiflix`, this one is `/mortiflix:mortiflix`. Your Claude Code conversation is the guide, not the studio. The video is still made by the studio's own sessions, behind the same gates. The guide asks you at every gate and is told never to decide one for you. Keys never go into the chat: you add them with `mortiflix keys` in a terminal, or in Settings › Keys. The guide asks before it installs anything, opens a port or starts paid work. Only read commands are pre-allowed, so your Claude Code permission settings apply to everything else. From a clone, `claude --plugin-dir ./plugin` loads it without installing. ## Backends | Backend | What runs | Who pays | |---|---|---| | `claude-code` | `claude -p` in the project folder, with your login | your Claude plan | | `anthropic-api` | Mortiflix's own agent loop on the Claude API: a persistent shell, a file editor that can *show* Claude the frames it renders, web search, prompt caching, compaction for long sessions | your API key, per token | | `demo` | a scripted stand-in that walks every gate with placeholder frames and a test-pattern video | nobody | Pick one with `mortiflix init --backend …`, `mortiflix config backend …`, or Settings in the web studio. Each project shows what its Claude work cost: on a Claude plan, what it **would have cost** at API prices (you didn't pay that); with an API key through Claude Code, about what you spent. ## Your keys Mortiflix runs on your own accounts: there's nothing to sign up for. `mortiflix init` asks for your keys, and `mortiflix keys` changes them any time (Settings › Keys in the web studio does the same): ``` Anthropic API key only for the anthropic-api backend (Claude Code uses your own login) ElevenLabs API key only for ElevenLabs narration, sound effects and music Upload-Post API key only for `mortiflix publish` through Upload-Post (optional; sessions never get it) Other keys anything a pipeline's tools read from the environment, e.g. GEMINI_API_KEY ``` Typing is hidden, each key is checked with a free API call before it's saved, and they're written to the studio folder only (`secrets.json` and `session.env`, mode 600). If a project needs a key you haven't added, it asks **before it starts** (`mortiflix new`, or the web studio's Start button) instead of failing halfway through. For scripts: `echo "$KEY" | mortiflix keys set elevenlabs`. ## What it can make today | Pipeline | Steps you review | Good for | |---|---|---| | `explainer` | brief → script → style frames → transitions → animatic → music → final | 30 s to 2 min explainers, narrated or not, with an original score | | `social-short` | brief → hook frames → transitions → final | 45 s to 3 min vertical shorts: hook first, works with sound off | | `logo-sting` | directions → final | a 3–8 s logo animation; the quickest real run | | `song` | blueprint → final | an instrumental song from a genre and a topic: researched genre, checked score, MIDI, an instrument per channel, a mastered track | They build in [Remotion](https://www.remotion.dev/) (React video) and check every render with ffmpeg (`qc.mjs`: format, black or frozen frames, loudness, a frame sheet Claude has to look at). Remotion has its own license: free for individuals and small teams, a company license above that. Check it for your case. ## Narration Pick a voice in **Settings › Narration** (or `mortiflix voice`): - **ElevenLabs**: connect your key and choose from your voices, the default voices or the Voice Library, with Eleven v4 by default and every option the API offers (models, stability and similarity, language, text normalization, pronunciation dictionaries, audio format, data-residency servers), plus sound effects and music beds. Settings shows your plan, credits, and whether you may use the audio commercially (the free plan doesn't). - **This computer**: Qwen3-TTS (open, Apache-2.0) through ComfyUI on your graphics card: free and private. Mortiflix checks your GPU and offers it when it fits (4 GB for the 0.6B voice, 8 GB for the 1.7B voice with delivery instructions). - **Your own voice**: you read the script yourself, one short line at a time, in the **recording booth**: in the web studio (hold Space to record, listen back, keep the best take), in a terminal (`mortiflix record `), or by importing files you recorded elsewhere (`mortiflix record --import `). The studio asks for you when the script is ready and carries on once every line has a kept take. - **None**: on-screen text and music. Generated lines are checked by speech to text and retaken if words go missing; word timings drive the animation. Details: [docs/VOICE.md](docs/VOICE.md). ## Transitions Before the animatic, every project gets a **transition board**: for each change from one style frame to the next, the object or idea on screen that carries it, why the cut happens there, the word it lands on, and real in-between frames rendered from the two style frames and the chosen transition. Transitions come from the [remotion-transitions](https://github.com/GTKottman/remotion-transitions) library (installed by setup), or are new ones inspired by it. The screen never goes blank: no dip to a flat colour, no flash to white. A check reads every 10% of every transition and fails any frame that does. ## Setup: music, assets and 3D `mortiflix setup` (or **Settings › Setup**) explains each part, why it's needed and what it installs, then asks. Everything goes into the studio folder, never system-wide. Full details: [docs/SETUP.md](docs/SETUP.md). - **Music.** One music engine writes songs (the `song` pipeline) and video scores, in stages you can follow: the genre researched (songs), a blueprint, the score in [Strudel](https://strudel.cc) as notes only, a machine check (harmony locked to the chart, the intensity curve as planned, every hit within a frame of the picture), the **MIDI** captured, an **instrument chosen for every channel** and auditioned, then a measured master. Every decision is written down in a music sheet. For videos, the recommended finish is yours: download the MIDI pack, make the sound in your own DAW, import your master. [docs/MUSIC.md](docs/MUSIC.md) - **Assets.** If you have a website you use for assets, list it: sessions search it and download what fits in your own Chrome, with your own login, through browser-use's [browser-harness](https://github.com/browser-use/browser-harness), recording every asset's source and licence. Without one, sessions make every visual themselves. - **3D.** Blender with the studio's toolkits, in its own profile (your Blender setup is never touched): MoBlend (MoGraph), Camera, Animate, Math, Circuits, Camera Flight for flying the camera yourself (`mortiflix blender`), and **Nova FX**, Mortiflix's own particle engine (particles, fire, sparks, fireworks), which builds on Linux only for now. ## Publishing (optional) Once you approve a final, the video is yours to download. If you'd rather post it straight from the studio, Mortiflix publishes through **[Upload-Post](https://upload-post.com)**. It's a hosted service: you make an account there and connect your social accounts under a profile. Turn it on in setup (`mortiflix setup publish uploadpost`, or Settings › Setup) and add its key with `mortiflix keys set uploadpost`. Upload-Post's **free plan** ($0/mo) is enough to start, and paid plans are there if you need more: - 10 uploads/mo - Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, X, Threads, Pinterest, Bluesky, Google Business + 12 more - Schedule posts - Analytics - 2 profiles - Video editor API (FFmpeg): 30 min/mo - AI Shorts Uploader: 10 analyses/mo Mortiflix used to offer two publishing services. The free, open-source one, Postiz, was removed after the Railway security breach of October 21, 2026 (see the warning at the top). Upload-Post, the one that needs an account, is the one we're staying with. Then: ```sh mortiflix publish # where the brief said (TikTok / Reels / Shorts), asks first mortiflix publish --to linkedin,x --title "…" # somewhere else, with your own caption mortiflix publish --at 2026-10-20T18:00 --timezone Europe/Madrid # scheduled mortiflix publish --status # per platform, with the links once they're live ``` Only you publish: it's a command you run, never something a session can reach (`mfx` has no way to it), and only a delivered project's approved final goes out. It shows what goes where and asks before sending (`--yes` skips the question in scripts). Running it again never posts the same video twice (`--again` does, on purpose). `--profile` is the Upload-Post profile your accounts are connected under; it's remembered after the first time. Publishing was started by [@mutonby](https://github.com/mutonby) ([#3](https://github.com/GTKottman/mortiflix-oss/pull/3)), who works on Upload-Post and built it. ## Make your own pipeline ```sh cp -r pipelines/logo-sting ~/Mortiflix/pipelines/my-pipeline # the studio's own pipelines override built-ins $EDITOR ~/Mortiflix/pipelines/my-pipeline/pipeline.json mortiflix pipelines # validates it mortiflix new my-pipeline --backend demo # walk its gates for free ``` Read **[docs/PIPELINES.md](docs/PIPELINES.md)**. This is where help is most wanted: music videos, product films, data stories, kinetic type, 3D in Blender, captions for existing footage. If you can describe how a good studio makes it, it can be a pipeline. ## How it works - [OVERVIEW.html](OVERVIEW.html): the whole project on one page, with UML diagrams (download it and open it in a browser) - [docs/ARCHITECTURE.md](docs/ARCHITECTURE.md): the runner, the bridge (`mfx`), the gates, the session brief, the backends - [docs/PIPELINES.md](docs/PIPELINES.md): the pipeline format and how to write a good one - [harness/GATES.md](harness/GATES.md): the protocol every session follows - [docs/SECURITY.md](docs/SECURITY.md): what a session can and can't reach, and the web server's guards - [docs/COMPUTE.md](docs/COMPUTE.md): where the tokens, time and disk go, measured on a real project - [docs/VOICE.md](docs/VOICE.md): narration with ElevenLabs or on your own GPU, and every option - [docs/SETUP.md](docs/SETUP.md): every part of setup, what it installs and where - [docs/MUSIC.md](docs/MUSIC.md): how the music step writes, checks and renders a score ## Where it came from Mortiflix began as a hosted motion design studio, where every video was made stage by stage behind the same kind of gates, with clients approving each one. This repository is that process, boiled down to one machine and opened up, so it can be improved by more people than one studio. Not here yet (from the hosted studio, contributions welcome): workflow preferences learned from your pins, redo rounds on a delivered video, share links, music in the social-short pipeline, and more pipelines (codebase explainers, 3D music videos, real estate films). ## Contributing See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md). Tests run in about a second (`npm test`) and never call the network. ## License [AGPL-3.0](LICENSE). If you run a modified Mortiflix as a service for others, share your changes. The bundled fonts (Sora, Unbounded) are under the SIL Open Font License (`web/fonts/`).