Epic Video-inator
The code behind benbot.si: tell BenBot an idea, plan it with him in a chat, hit Generate, and an
hour later a team of AI agents hands you a 90-second music video, built frame by frame in code with its own original
song.
How a video gets made
- Planner. A Claude Code session with attitude chats with you, looks up references, and pitches a plan with a
Generate button (
worker/planner.ts, worker/prompts/PLANNER.md). Replies stream in as it writes them.
- Director 1. Makes an original Suno track first, then builds the whole video in Python with
reel/: generated art, vector-rigged characters, effects, every cut snapped to a
hit in the music (worker/prompts/DIRECTOR.md, MUSIC.md).
- Critic + cold viewer. A blind critic reviews the cut against the brief, and a cold viewer who sees only frames
at 4 fps (and a written account of the soundtrack) says what they think it's about, where they got lost or bored,
and what they'd change (
worker/prompts/COLDVIEW.md, reel/CRITIC.md).
- Director 2. Fixes what they found. The finished cut gets a share page with a playable link preview.
Layout
site/: the website and its API. Bun + bun:sqlite, no framework. Invite-only access with emailed sign-in links
(no passwords), the planner chat, the cooking page, share pages (/v/<id>) with Discord/Slack/iMessage video cards,
and star ratings.reel/: the Python library the directors build videos with: drawing, character acting, effects, beat analysis,
synthesized SFX, image generation, parallel rendering, and the critic's measurements. reel/GUIDE.md is what a
director reads first. Setup: cd reel && uv venv --python 3.10 .venv && uv pip install --python .venv/bin/python -e . pytest.worker/: runs on a separate machine with the agents. It polls the site for access requests, planner turns and
video jobs, runs them as claude -p sessions, and reports back.
Running it
Site: cd site && WORKER_TOKEN=… BASE_URL=https://your.site bun src/server.ts (DEV=1 for local development; mail goes
out through sendmail). Worker: cd worker && SITE=https://your.site WORKER_TOKEN=… BEN_CHANNEL=… node worker.ts
(Node 24). The worker expects the Claude Code CLI, codex (image generation), ffmpeg,
and a logged-in Chrome for Suno. The worker looks for reel's venv at reel/.venv; the director prompts point at
~/Projects/reel, so link it there or edit the paths. It was built for one person's setup, so expect to adapt the paths.
License
MIT
