New end-to-end pipeline for building thematic documentary montages from
a locally-indexed corpus of free stock footage (Pexels, Archive.org,
NASA). The agent builds a project-local corpus, CLIP-ranks candidates
per scene slot, edits with motion-aware arc logic, and composes via
ffmpeg. No paid APIs required for the full path.
Pipeline definition and director skills:
- pipeline_defs/documentary-montage.yaml: 5-stage manifest
(idea -> scene_plan -> assets -> edit -> compose)
- skills/pipelines/documentary-montage/: 6 director skills
(executive-producer + idea/scene/asset/edit/compose directors)
Corpus and retrieval infrastructure:
- tools/video/corpus_builder.py: multi-source stock fan-out with
resumable append-only corpus index
- tools/video/clip_search.py: CLIP ViT-B/32 retrieval —
rank_for_slot, find_similar_set, diversify, stats
- tools/video/stock_sources/: base + pexels + archive_org + nasa
adapters with a pluggable BaseStockSource contract
- lib/clip_embedder.py: CLIP wrapper
- lib/corpus.py: corpus schema, jsonl append/read, motion-score
caching
video_compose fix rolled in because any concat-based pipeline depends
on it:
- Replace ambiguous -to with -t duration (was double-trimming cuts)
- Force re-encode + normalize to 1920x1080 @ 30fps (was keyframe-
snapping with -c copy and breaking concat on mixed-source corpora)
- Add silent-audio anullsrc fallback for clips without an audio
stream
README: add Documentary Montage row to the pipeline table and bump
the pipeline count from 11 to 12.
Implements the 2026-04-02 transformation spec (Phases 1-8) and fixes all
critical bugs found during 5-pipeline E2E testing.
Governance & Decision Intelligence:
- Pipeline-specific stage order in checkpoint (replaces global STAGES list)
- Provider scoring engine (lib/scoring.py) with 7-dimension weighted ranking
- Decision log artifact enforced at proposal/idea stage across all 10 pipelines
- Delivery promise classifier prevents silent motion-to-still downgrades
- Structured shot language in scene_plan schema (camera, lens, lighting, DOF)
- Variation checker and slideshow risk scorer block samey output before render
- Creative intake, capability extension, and creative-intake meta skills
- Final self-review artifact with 5 mandatory checks before presenting output
- Source media review contract for user-supplied footage
Render & Theme System:
- Remotion AnimatedBackground now derives colors from playbook (no more hardcoded
dark blue fintech gradient on every video)
- video_compose builds custom ThemeConfig from playbook YAML colors/fonts —
custom playbooks flow through to Remotion automatically
- Explainer component wires theme to all child components (charts, cards, etc.)
- resolveAsset() handles absolute paths on Windows/Unix via file:// URIs
- RENDERER_FAMILY_MAP synced with actual Remotion compositions
Critical Bug Fixes:
- Windows npx subprocess: run_command() resolves .cmd wrappers via shutil.which()
- Silent renderer downgrade: Remotion failure now returns explicit error with
options instead of silently falling back to FFmpeg
- .env inline comment parsing strips trailing # comments from API keys
- concat_path UnboundLocalError in video_compose finally block
- audio_mixer and showcase_card capture=True kwarg bug
- Selector estimate_cost() calls fixed (_select_tool -> _select_best_tool)
- asset_manifest schema expanded with provider, license, subtype fields
- screen-demo subtitle_gen moved from required to optional tools
- Duration drift detection in post-render final review (>25% warns)
