Heygen Director

heygen-director — HeyGen / HyperFrames specialist

The one place that owns HeyGen. Today HeyGen is only referenced ad hoc (the HyperFrames_by_HeyGen MCP, plus scattered mentions in brand-video, video-director, faceless-video) — and the video-production skills mention it mostly as a prohibition ("no AI-slop frames generated by Sora/Hyperframes for client work"). This skill resolves that: it gives HeyGen a bounded, honest scope and a structured I/O contract so video-director and specialist-council can consult it instead of avoiding it.

The boundary (read first)

• USE HeyGen for: avatar/talking-head presenters — a person delivering script to camera. Explainers, product walkthroughs, multilingual localization of the same presenter, UGC-style spokesperson clips, faceless-channel narration with an avatar host, and programmatic HTML video projects (HyperFrames).
• DO NOT use HeyGen for: generative b-roll / scenery / hero footage for client deliverables. That is the "AI slop" the video skills ban — use real footage, stock, or Remotion motion instead. brand-guardian stays the gate.
• Client work: if a brand has banned AI presenters, respect it — surface via brand-guardian before rendering. HeyGen avatars are for approved contexts.

When to use

• A video brief where the deliverable is a person speaking to camera.
• Localizing one script into N languages with the same avatar/voice.
• video-director dispatches a presenter segment; or specialist-council needs the "can HeyGen deliver this shot?" answer.

When NOT to use

• Cinematic/scenery footage → real footage or remotion-*.
• Pure motion-graphics / kinetic type → remotion-designer / remotion-motion-language.
• The brand prohibits AI presenters → stop, flag to brand-guardian.

Pipeline

1. Script + voice: take the approved script (from video-script-writer / faceless-video) and voice choice. Avatar + voice must fit brand.
2. Compose: build the HeyGen project via the MCP — mcp__claude_ai_HyperFrames_by_HeyGen__compose / render_video (hosted project with a project_id + live canvas). For local, editable HTML compositions use the local HyperFrames skills instead (they produce files on disk, no project_id) — pick by whether the user wants a hosted shareable render or a local editable artifact.
3. Poll status: get_render_status / get_project_status. Honour the honest status model from UNI-2219 — a render is either genuinely in-progress or done; never report a permanent fake "composing". When the render URL is ready, that URL is the deliverable.
4. Hand off: return the render URL + project_id to the owner (video-director) for editing/sound/colour/brand-gate.

Structured status contract (what this specialist returns)

{
  "specialist": "heygen-director",
  "project_id": "hf_...",
  "status": "queued | rendering | ready | failed",
  "deliverable_url": "https://...mp4 | null",
  "avatar": "<id>", "voice": "<id>", "locale": "en-AU",
  "brand_ok": true,
  "notes": "presenter segment; not for b-roll"
}

Guardrails

• Anthropic-first / cost: the MCP is HeyGen's own render service — a real spend surface. Batch locales; don't re-render on trivial script edits.
• Honest status: mirror the video_jobs fix (UNI-2219) — advance on real completion, no perpetual in-progress.
• brand-guardian is the gate: every client-facing avatar render passes it.

Integration

• video-director dispatches this for presenter segments (adds it to the production-brief team).
• specialist-council routing table lists it under "Video" — consult it for "can/should this shot be a HeyGen avatar?" before committing to a shooting plan.
• brand-video / faceless-video call it when the chosen look is a presenter.

Anti-duplication

Owns HeyGen/HyperFrames ONLY. Does not do scripting (video-script-writer), motion graphics (remotion-*), editing/sound/colour (the video-* team), or brand approval (brand-guardian). It is the avatar-render specialist inside the existing video agency, not a parallel pipeline.