After Effects editable-project skill for Claude
Turn a video made with code into an After Effects project you can actually edit.
If Claude (or you) rendered a motion video from code (HTML canvas, Node, Python, SVG, any frame-by-frame renderer), this skill rebuilds it as a native .aep that a motion designer can take over:
- live text layers
- shape layers
- one precomp per object
- a camera null with real keyframes
- toggleable look layers: glow, grain, vignette
- audio stems and narration markers
It's the After Effects equivalent of a layered PSD. You get no baked frames and no image sequences.
Code render vs. the rebuilt After Effects project
Left: frames rendered from code. Right: the same moments rendered from the .aep this skill built.
Layout, camera path, drop-ins, word-timed handwriting and the headline stamp match. Glow, grain and colour come from After Effects' own effects, so they differ slightly.
Install
Claude Code: from this repo as a plugin marketplace
/plugin marketplace add AnmolChandiok/claude-after-effects-skill
/plugin install ae-editable-project@claude-after-effects-skill
Claude Code: as a personal skill
git clone https://github.com/AnmolChandiok/claude-after-effects-skill
cp -R claude-after-effects-skill/plugins/ae-editable-project/skills/ae-editable-project ~/.claude/skills/
Claude.ai / Claude Desktop: download ae-editable-project.skill from the latest release and upload it in Claude's skills settings.
Use it
Ask in plain words, for example:
- "Make me an editable After Effects project of this video" (with the render script in your project)
- "My motion designer wants to take this over in AE; she'll want to re-time the camera and the handwriting"
- "Package this as an AE project for my editor, who's on Windows" (no After Effects on your machine)
Requirements
- Node.js 18+.
- After Effects 2023 or later, if Claude should build and check the
.aep itself (macOS). Without it, you get a portable build.jsx that anyone runs in After Effects with File → Scripts → Run Script File…, on Mac or Windows.
- In After Effects: Settings → Scripting & Expressions → Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network must be on.
How it works
your renderer ──export──▶ scene.json + assets/ ──make_jsx.js──▶ build.jsx ──After Effects──▶ project.aep + check stills
- Export from the source of truth. Claude adds an export step to your renderer, so the project reads the same numbers the video was drawn with. The two can't drift apart.
- Describe the scene as data.
scene.json holds:
- comps, layers, parenting
- keyframes with exact easing
- masks, effects, track mattes
- word-timed text reveals
- markers and audio
- Let After Effects build it.
aelib.jsx runs inside After Effects. It builds the project, saves it, writes a build log, and renders check stills to compare against the original frames.
What carries over:
- Camera: code curves become AE keyframes that match exactly. A cubic Hermite segment equals an AE bezier key pair with the curve's real speeds at 33.3% influence. Extra keys are added only where a move needs them, such as a log-space zoom.
- Objects: each one is a precomp authored at 2× with collapse transformations, so it stays sharp at any camera zoom.
- Handwriting: it stays live text, revealed by a mask keyed per word at the narration times.
- Unsaved work: the builder won't replace an After Effects project that has unsaved changes.
What's in the repo
Testing
The skill was run on three test cases, each with and without the skill, in two rounds. Both versions produced working projects on these small cases. With the skill, the motion matched the original exactly and the project structure was cleaner. The test runs also caught three builder bugs, which are fixed:
- ExtendScript misreads chained ternaries.
- The word reveal was measured against the comp width instead of the text's.
- After Effects guessed non-square pixels for some image sizes.
Harder test cases are very welcome.
Limitations
- After Effects' Glow and Noise stand in for canvas-style glow and grain, so the look is close, not identical.
- Fonts must be installed on the machine that opens the project.
- Claude builds and checks the
.aep itself only on macOS. On other systems, you run the portable build.jsx in After Effects.
Contributing
Issues and pull requests are welcome, especially:
- new test cases from real projects
- support for more renderer types (Remotion, p5.js, Manim, Lottie)
- Windows automation for building the project
See CONTRIBUTING.md. If this saved you an afternoon in After Effects, a ⭐ helps other people find it.
License
MIT
