Remotion Create

Licence note: Remotion is free only for individuals and for-profit companies with 3 or fewer employees. The owner will not buy a Company License. Use Remotion only for the owner's own freelance or personal work, or if the owner confirms the client has 3 or fewer employees; otherwise use motion-reel or hyperframes (Apache-2.0) instead.

Local safety note: ask the user before running npx create-video@latest or any other unpinned npx command.

These are instructions for making a new Remotion project and composition.
If this is not the next task, see Remotion Best Practices

Scaffold a project

If a project already exists, skip this. Ensure Node.js and Git is installed, and the current folder is appropriate for starting a new project.

Inspect the current folder, including hidden files, before choosing where to scaffold.

Empty folder

If it is empty, or contains only disposable operating-system metadata such as .DS_Store, create the project directly in the current folder. Remove only those disposable metadata files first, since create-video rejects non-empty folders. Do not treat all hidden files as disposable: files such as .env and directories such as .git are meaningful contents.

Scaffold in existing folder:

npx create-video@latest --yes --blank --no-tailwind .
npm i

Non-empty folder

If the current folder contains meaningful contents and no project already exists, scaffold into a new subfolder. Replace my-video with a suitable project name.

npx create-video@latest --yes --blank --no-tailwind my-video
cd my-video
npm i

Open the preview before building the video

As soon as the project can run, open Remotion Studio in the browser before writing or changing the composition. For a new project, do this immediately after scaffolding and installing dependencies. For an existing project, do it before editing the video. Keep Studio running while you work so the user can see changes as they appear and steer the result.

Designing a video

Keep the scaffold and add React Markup. Follow Remotion React Markup Best Practices and Video Layout Rules for video-first layout and text sizing guidance.

Before writing the root that registers <Composition> or <Still> elements, follow Compositions and stills.

Is this a timeline of clips?

If the video arranges multiple video or audio clips on a timeline, follow Video editing before writing the timeline. Give every clip that should be edited independently its own authored JSX node.

Is this a multi-scene video?

If this is a video with multiple subsequent scenes, follow guidance at Multi-scene videos.

Interactivity Best Practices

By structuring the React Markup following Remotion Interactivity Best Practices, you allow the user to make edits in the Studio which write back to code.

TailwindCSS

If Tailwind is requested, see tailwind.md for using TailwindCSS in Remotion.

Follow-up

The video creation process has finished. For follow-up prompts, use Remotion Best Practices

How Remotion fits our stack (local note)

• Remotion: React and data-driven series, templates and parameterised batches (many videos from one composition plus JSON data).
• motion-reel skill (zero-dependency seek(t) renderer): one-off reels, launch films and kinetic type. No licence concerns.
• hyperframes: HTML and GSAP based video.
• Higgsfield: generated footage (Seedance and others). Import clips into Remotion only when a data-driven template needs them.

Licence summary (from LICENSE.md in the Remotion repo, checked 2026-10-31):

• Free licence: individuals, for-profit organisations with up to 3 employees, non-profits, and evaluation. Commercial use is allowed.
• Company Licence (paid, remotion.pro/license): required for any for-profit organisation larger than 3 employees.
• Not allowed even on the free tier: copying or modifying Remotion code to sell or relicense your own derivative of Remotion.
• Freelancer rule: the owner as an individual is eligible. If a client company (more than 3 employees) would run, host or own the Remotion project or render pipeline, a Company Licence is likely required: stop and ask the owner. When unsure, check https://www.remotion.dev/docs/license and the FAQ at https://www.remotion.pro/faq, or use motion-reel or hyperframes.