cowork-os Manim Video
Purpose
Build production-ready Manim CE explainer videos with a stronger workflow than a plain prompt: dependency preflight, deterministic project scaffolding, render helpers, and artifact manifests.
Routing
- Use when: Use when the user asks to create a Manim animation, 3Blue1Brown-style explainer, animated math walkthrough, equation derivation, algorithm visualization, technical concept video, or animated data story.
- Do not use when: Do not use for live-action editing, generic marketing motion graphics, static diagrams, or requests that only want conceptual brainstorming without renderable outputs.
- Outputs: A workspace-local Manim project with
plan.md,script.py, render helpers, and run artifacts. - Success criteria: The project is scaffolded, the script is renderable, dependency gaps are called out, and the next render command is explicit.
Trigger Examples
Positive
- Make a 3Blue1Brown-style Manim video explaining gradient descent.
- Build a Manim animation that walks through Dijkstra's algorithm.
- Create an animated equation derivation video in Manim CE.
- Use the manim-video skill for this request.
Negative
- Edit this talking-head video and add B-roll.
- Design a static system diagram for this architecture review.
- Brainstorm three animation concepts, but do not create code or project files.
- Do not use manim-video for unrelated copywriting or generic video-editing work.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| topic | string | Yes | What the animation should explain or visualize |
| mode | select | No | Video pattern: auto, concept-explainer, equation-derivation, algorithm-visualization, data-story, architecture-diagram, paper-explainer, 3d-visualization |
| audience | string | No | Target audience for pacing and explanation depth |
| target_length_seconds | string | No | Approximate runtime in seconds |
| output_dir | string | No | Workspace-relative or absolute project directory |
| voiceover | select | No | Whether to scaffold a voiceover script |
Workflow Notes
- Run
scripts/setup.shfirst. This is mandatory before claiming the project is render-ready. - Use
scripts/bootstrap_project.pyto create or refresh the initial project shape instead of hand-rolling boilerplate. - Keep
plan.mdandscript.pyaligned. If the scene list changes, update both. - Default to draft render quality first. Production render is the last step, not the first.
Reference Map
references/full-guidance.md: planning rubric, scene design rules, code patterns, render flow, and review checklistreferences/troubleshooting.md: install issues, LaTeX/render failures, and debug movesscripts/setup.sh: environment preflight for Python, Manim, LaTeX, and ffmpegscripts/bootstrap_project.py: deterministic scaffold generator for a new Manim project
Runtime Prompt
- Runtime prompt is defined directly in
../manim-video.json.