Create Library

Skill: Create Library (parent brief)

This skill is performed in the main thread.

Step 1 — Initialize settings (one-time)

Before any library setup, check if libraries/settings.yaml exists. If not, copy from template:

cp templates/settings_template.yaml libraries/settings.yaml

If no previous settings.yaml was present, use AskUserQuestion to ask the user to confirm or change their defaults (editor and whisper_model).

Editor options (label shown to user → value to save):

• Final Cut Pro X → fcpx
• Adobe Premiere Pro → premiere
• DaVinci Resolve → resolve

whisper_model options:

• Small (recommended — pairs well with per-library transcript_refinement)
• Medium
• Turbo (Large)

Save the shortcode (fcpx / premiere / resolve) to libraries/settings.yaml.

Step 2 — Gather project information

First, guard against clobbering an existing library. Once you have a candidate name (after question 1 below), check:

ruby lib/buttercut/library.rb <name> exists   # exits 0 if it does, 1 if not

If it already exists, stop creating — the user is really resuming or adding footage. Switch to the process-library skill instead.

Ask the user these questions one at a time — never all at once.

1. What do you want to call this project library?

   • Examples: "bike-locking-video-series", "raiders-2025-highlights", "yo-yo-techniques"
   • Normalize the name: replace spaces with dashes, lowercase, drop special characters (keep alphanumeric and dashes).

2. Where are the footage files located?

   • Ask: "Where are your videos and photos? You can drag folders or individual files directly into the chat."
   • A library can hold videos and still images (photos, screenshots, title cards). Supported: video — mov, mp4, mts, m2ts, mxf, avi; image — jpg, jpeg, png. Anything else is rejected with a message naming the supported sets (it can be converted with ffmpeg first).
   • Verify all files exist before proceeding.
   • Inform the user of what was found: "Found 5 videos and 3 photos totaling 2.3GB."

3. What language is spoken in these videos?

   • AskUserQuestion with options: "English", "Spanish", and a free-text fallback for other languages.
   • Save the language name (e.g. "English") to library.yaml.
   • Map to a language code (e.g. en, es, fr) behind the scenes when needed for transcription.

4. Can I proofread the transcripts after they're generated?

   • AskUserQuestion with this exact question: "Can I proofread the transcripts after they're generated? I'll use the video's context to fix mistakes."
   • Options: "Yes — Recommended (Use Claude to refine video understanding)" and "No".
   • Save the boolean to transcript_refinement in library.yaml (true for Yes, false for No). Default to true if the user skips.

Read the editor from libraries/settings.yaml — you'll pass it into the create call next.

Step 3 — Create the library

Library.create is the one operation that doesn't have a plain CLI form (kwarg-heavy). Run it via ruby -e. It creates the directory tree (transcripts/, contact_sheets/, summaries/, cuts/, plans/, misc/), ffprobes each video for duration, and writes library.yaml in one call. media_paths takes videos and images together — the type is inferred from each file's extension:

ruby -e "require_relative 'lib/buttercut/library'; \
  Library.create('my-library', \
    language: 'en', \
    editor: 'fcpx', \
    transcript_refinement: true, \
    media_paths: ['/abs/foo.mov', '/abs/title-card.png'])"

Each video entry starts with empty transcript, contact_sheet, and summary — empty means "todo", filename presence means "done." Image entries get only an empty summary (no transcript, contact sheet, or duration — stills are timeless).

Step 4 — Hand off to process-library

The library now exists but no footage has been analyzed. Continue straight into the process-library skill to analyze the footage end-to-end. Read that skill and continue processing the library.

Tell the user: "Library setup complete. Found [N] videos ([55 minutes of footage]). Starting footage analysis..." then proceed with process-library against the library you just created.

Notes

• Migrations: creating a fresh library always writes the current schema, so no migration is needed for the new one. But if you touched any pre-existing library here, check its schema against templates/library_template.yaml and run ruby lib/buttercut/library.rb migrate if anything's missing or renamed. See AGENTS.md → Critical Principles.
• Terminology: user-facing, this is "setting up a project" or "creating a library."