Remotion Interactivity

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.

Studio edits the JSX nodes that create timeline items. Structure the code around what the user should be able to select, move, trim, or style independently. Keep editable values inline on each instance.

Before writing a scene or refactoring its layers, read editable timeline structure. It covers editing units, tracks, shared timing, plain layout containers, and a complete component-to-root example. For a timeline built from footage, also read editable video timelines.

Use connected compositions when a scene or reusable group needs its own timeline. Validate both its standalone view and the full parent timeline; a connection alone does not guarantee fewer visible rows.

Choose schema fields

Each key in the schema is a prop that Studio can read and edit at the call site. Props that are not in the schema still work, but are not editable in Studio. Keys may use dot notation, such as style.color.

Every field needs a default and should have a description, which Studio shows as the label. Set keyframable: false to show a static control.

Expose content and per-instance appearance, such as the text and an accent color. Do not add fields for style.translate, style.scale, style.rotate, style.transformOrigin and style.opacity: Interactive.create() adds them automatically.

To make CSS properties of the root editable per instance, spread the built-in schema fragments:

const cardSchema = {
  ...Interactive.textSchema, // style.color, style.fontSize, style.fontWeight, ...
  ...Interactive.backgroundSchema, // style.backgroundColor
  ...Interactive.borderRadiusSchema, // style.borderRadius, ...
} as const satisfies InteractivitySchema;

Also available: Interactive.borderSchema, and Interactive.captionsSchema for components that accept captions. For components that accept React.ReactNode children, add ...Interactive.childrenSchema. It provides controls for children content and may evolve to support richer content. Currently, it uses a string field labeled "Text" with a default of ''. If a component requires string-only children, declare an explicit children field with type: 'string' instead. Interactive.textSchema controls typography styles; childrenSchema controls content. The children fragment is not included in baseSchema or automatically added to custom components. Nested markup and computed children are currently read-only. text-content is a deprecated alias for the string field type. See InteractivitySchema for all options.

Make an HTML element interactive using Interactive

Every HTML and SVG element (except <Img>, it already is interactive) such as <div> can be turned interactive using Interactive:

<Interactive.Div
  name="Greeting card"
  style={{fontSize: 80, padding: 24}}
>
  Hello
</Interactive.Div>

Use this for text or graphics that need independent controls. Keep layout-only containers and decorative internals as plain HTML; an interactive component already provides controls for its root.

Prefer inline text

If text is fixed and only used once, write it directly inside the interactive element instead of extracting it into a constant.

// 👍 Fixed copy stays editable
<Interactive.Div name="Title">
  Remotion Best Practices
</Interactive.Div>

Use a prop or variable only when the text is dynamic or reused.

Give interactive elements a descriptive name

Add a name prop to elements to make them easily identifyable. Avoid computed names, hardcode them.

<>
  <Interactive.Div name="Hero title" style={{fontSize: 80}}>
    Launch day
  </Interactive.Div>
  <Img name="Avatar" src="https://remotion.media/image.jpeg" />
  <Video name="Background" src="https://remotion.media/video.mp4" />
  <Interactive.Div name="Title">
    Launch day
  </Interactive.Div>
</>

Keep all CSS styles inline

The best way is to just pass a plain object to style - no referring to constants, no object spreading, no math.

<Interactive.Div
  style={{
    fontSize: 80,
    color: 'red',
  }}
>
  Hello World!
</Interactive.Div>

const baseStyle = useMemo(() => {
  return {
    fontSize: 12 // ❌ Non-inline styles are not supported
  }
}, []);

<Interactive.Div
  style={{
    ...baseStyle, // ❌ Spreading is not supported
    color: RED, // ❌ Referring to constants is not supported
    scale: frame * 10 // ❌ Math is not supported
  }}
>
  Hello World!
</Interactive.Div>

Animate using interpolate()

Write animations as inline interpolate() calls on the property that changes.
The output range, easing, extrapolation and output property should use hardcoded values.

The input range may additionally use durationInFrames, fps, width and height destructured directly from useVideoConfig(). Bare identifiers such as durationInFrames, multiplication with a number such as 2 * fps or fps * 2, and subtraction of a number such as durationInFrames - 1 are supported.

const {fps, durationInFrames} = useVideoConfig();

// 👍 Inline values can be standardized and keyframed
<Interactive.Div
  name="Product card"
  style={{
    color: 'white',
    fontSize: 80,
    scale: interpolate(frame, [0, fps], [0, 1], {
      easing: Easing.spring({damping: 200}),
      output: 'perceptual-scale',
      extrapolateLeft: 'clamp',
      extrapolateRight: 'clamp'
    }),
    rotate: interpolate(frame, [0, 1 * fps], ['0deg', '20deg'], {
      easing: Easing.spring({damping: 200}),
      extrapolateLeft: 'clamp',
      extrapolateRight: 'clamp'
    }),
    translate: interpolate(
      frame,
      [durationInFrames - 30, durationInFrames],
      ['0px 0px', '0px 120px'],
      {
        easing: Easing.spring({damping: 200}),
        output: 'perceptual-scale',
        extrapolateLeft: 'clamp',
        extrapolateRight: 'clamp'
      }
    ),
  }}
/>

const translateY = interpolate(frame, [0, 30], [0, 120]); // ❌ Math should be directly in the markup

<Interactive.Div
  name="Product card"
  style={{
    translate: translateY, // ❌ Only inline interpolate() calls are supported,
    rotate: interpolate(frame, [start, start + 10], [0, Math.PI]), // ❌ Cannot use math with arbitrary variables, cannot use constants
    scale: interpolate(anyVariable, [0, 30], [0, 1]) // ❌ Can only interpret the `frame` variable.
  }}
/>

Keep SVG paths editable with Interactive.Path

Use <Interactive.Path> from remotion instead of <path> inside an SVG to make the path visually editable.

Install @remotion/paths for path interpolation and Studio path keyframes:

bunx remotion add @remotion/paths

If the geometry is meant to be static, put the path string directly in the d prop. Do not extract it into a constant.

import {Interactive} from 'remotion';

<Interactive.Svg width={300} height={300} viewBox="0 0 300 300">
  <Interactive.Path
    name="Triangle"
    d="M 40 40 L 260 40 L 150 260 Z"
    fill="#0b84f3"
  />
</Interactive.Svg>

Morph paths using inline interpolatePaths()

Use interpolatePaths() from @remotion/paths directly in d.
It accepts a frame, an input range, an equally sized array of path strings, and options for easing, extrapolation, and posterization. Keep the output paths, ranges, and options inline, following the same input-range rules as interpolate() above.
Do not use interpolatePath() API or extract the interpolated result into a variable when the path keyframes should remain editable in Studio.

import {interpolatePaths} from '@remotion/paths';
import {Easing, Interactive, useCurrentFrame} from 'remotion';

export const MorphingPath = () => {
  const frame = useCurrentFrame();

  return (
    <Interactive.Svg width={300} height={300} viewBox="0 0 300 300">
      <Interactive.Path
        name="Morphing triangle"
        d={interpolatePaths(
          frame,
          [0, 30, 60],
          [
            'M 40 40 L 260 40 L 150 260 Z',
            'M 40 150 L 150 40 L 260 150 Z',
            'M 40 260 L 150 40 L 260 260 Z',
          ],
          {
            easing: Easing.bezier(0.42, 0, 0.58, 1),
            extrapolateLeft: 'clamp',
            extrapolateRight: 'clamp',
          },
        )}
        fill="#0b84f3"
      />
    </Interactive.Svg>
  );
};

Studio can edit the path at the current frame, add or move keyframes, and adjust their easing.
Use strokeDasharray and strokeDashoffset to evolve paths.

Use scale, translate, rotate CSS properties

Avoid the transform CSS property.
If possible, use scale, rotate and translate instead because only they are interactively editable.

Keep composition metadata inline

When scaffolding a composition, use a JSX string literal for id, keep width, height, fps, durationInFrames and defaultProps inline and make no type assertions.

The Props editor can save visual edits back to your code when defaultProps is an inline object literal on <Composition> or <Still>.

// 👍 Static values are in <Composition>, dynamic values are in calculateMetadata()
const calculateMetadata = useMemo(async () => {
  const dimensions = await getDimensions(); // just an example
  return {width: dimensions.width, height: dimensions.height};
});

<Composition
  id="my-video"
  component={MyComponent}
  durationInFrames={150}
  fps={30}
  calculateMetadata={calculateMetadata}
  defaultProps={{title: 'Hello', color: '#0b84ff'}}
/>

const defaultProps = {title: 'Hello', color: '#0b84ff'}; // ❌ Don't extract defaultProps, must be inline
const calculateMetadata = useMemo(() => {
  // ❌ Unnecessary because no calculation is being done,
  return {durationInFrames: 150, fps: 30, width: 1920, height: 1080};
});

<Composition
  id="my-video"
  component={MyComponent}
  calculateMetadata={calculateMetadata}
  defaultProps={{
    title: 'Hello',
  } as Props} // ❌ Don't have type assertions, instead type MyComponent correctly
/>

Use only calculateMetadata() for the part of the metadata that is dynamic.

Effects should be inline too

Keep effect arrays and parameters inline so their shape and keyframes remain editable. See Inline effects for examples.

Making your own component interactive

To make a custom userland component interactive, use: Make a component interactive

Video editing

If a Remotion component mainly consists of video and audio clips, see Video editing for best practices on how to structure Remotion markup so the clips are interactively editable in the timeline.