How to Edit a YouTube Video With Claude Code (Beginner's Step-by-Step Setup)

Ok, let's start.

This is the hands-on setup. If you want the tour first, what each step does and why it works the way it does, that is the companion guide: Claude Code Video Editing, from raw recording to published video. This page is the how. That page is the why.

Watch it run first

Before you install anything, here is the result. The video below was made with this project, end to end. The cut, the animations, the on-screen recordings, the voice cleanup, the sound effects, and the thumbnail. All of it built by Claude Code.

That is what you are setting up. Now let's get it on your machine.

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What is Claude Code, and what is a skill?

Two words show up on every step below, so let's define them once.

Claude Code is an AI assistant that works in your terminal. The terminal is the plain text window where you type commands to your computer instead of clicking buttons. You talk to Claude Code in normal English, and it reads your files, runs commands, and edits code for you. You are the director. It does the typing.

A skill is a folder with an instructions file inside it. Think of it as a playbook: someone writes down how to do one job well, once, and Claude follows that playbook every time you ask for that job. You never open these files. You say what you want in plain English, and Claude picks the right playbook on its own.

This whole project is eight of those playbooks, lined up in order. That is the entire trick. You do not learn video editing. You ask, and each skill does its part.

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What you need first

Here is the full list before the steps. Nothing is exotic, and every tool is free.

Programs to install, and I walk each one below:

• VS Code, a free code editor. Your workspace.
• Claude Code, the assistant that does the work.
• Python 3.10 or newer. The project runs small Python programs (the cut, the upload, the thumbnails).
• Node 18 or newer. One part, the animation engine called Remotion, is a Node project. Install the current LTS version and you are covered.
• ffmpeg. The free program that actually cuts and encodes video. Everything leans on it.

You also need a few free accounts for API keys. An API key is a long password that lets the project use a paid online service as you. You paste your keys into one file and the project reads them from there. I show where each one comes from in Step 6. The good news for trying it: you can run the first step, the cut, on AssemblyAI's free tier, and skip the paid keys until you want the later steps.

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Step 1: Install VS Code

VS Code, short for Visual Studio Code, is a free code editor from Microsoft. For this guide, think of it as one window that holds two things: your project files on the left, and a terminal at the bottom where Claude Code runs.

1. Go to code.visualstudio.com.
2. Download the build for your system (Windows, Mac, or Linux). The site usually detects it for you.
3. Install it like any app, and open it once so you know it works.

That is the whole step. If you already have VS Code, skip ahead.

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Step 2: Install Claude Code

There are two ways to get Claude Code. Pick one. I use the terminal version, because the project runs a lot of terminal commands anyway, and it keeps everything in one place.

The terminal version (what I use)

Open a terminal. On Windows, the simplest is PowerShell: press Start, type PowerShell, and open it. Then paste one line.

On Windows:

irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

On Mac or Linux, paste this instead:

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

This installer keeps itself updated, so you install it once and forget it. When it finishes, check it worked:

claude --version

If that prints a version number, you are done. If it says the command is not found, close the terminal, open a new one, and try again. A fresh terminal is the fix nine times out of ten.

The VS Code extension (the click version)

Prefer buttons over commands? In VS Code, click the Extensions icon in the left bar (or press Ctrl+Shift+X), search Claude Code, and install the one published by Anthropic. It adds a chat panel right inside VS Code.

Either way, the first time you start Claude Code it opens your browser to sign in. Claude Code needs a Claude account, and there is no free tier, the cheapest is Claude Pro at about $20 a month. I put the full cost picture near the end.

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Step 3: Get the project

Now you download the project itself. Two ways, and the second one needs no extra tools.

Option A: clone with git (the normal way)

If you have git installed, this path is cleaner because updates are one command later. In your terminal, go to wherever you keep projects, then:

git clone https://github.com/hassancs91/claude-youtube-editor
cd claude-youtube-editor

cd means change directory. It walks you into the project folder. Every command after this runs from inside that folder.

Option B: download the ZIP (no git needed)

No git? No problem. Open the repo page at github.com/hassancs91/claude-youtube-editor, click the green Code button, choose Download ZIP, and unzip it somewhere you will remember. That folder is your project. Done.

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Step 4: Open the folder and start Claude Code

Open VS Code. Choose File, then Open Folder, and pick the claude-youtube-editor folder you just made. Your files show up on the left.

Now open the built-in terminal: from the top menu, Terminal, then New Terminal. A panel opens at the bottom, already sitting inside your project folder. This is where everything happens.

Start Claude Code by typing one word and pressing Enter:

claude

The first time, it opens your browser to sign in to your Claude account. Sign in, come back to the terminal, and you are talking to Claude Code. From now on it remembers you for this project.

One nice thing you get for free: this project ships its eight skills inside a .claude/skills/ folder. Claude Code finds them automatically the moment you open the folder. You do not install or turn on anything. They are just there, ready. (If you chose the VS Code extension instead, click the Claude Code icon in the top right or the status bar to open the chat panel.)

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Step 5: The one-time setup

This part looks like the scary part. It is not. You are pasting four commands, once, and then never again for this project. Run them in the same terminal, from inside the project folder.

First, a virtual environment. A virtual environment, or venv, is a private box for this project's Python tools so they do not collide with anything else on your computer. You make it once.

python -m venv venv
venv/Scripts/python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

On Mac or Linux the second line is ./venv/bin/python -m pip install -r requirements.txt. That line reads requirements.txt, the project's shopping list of Python tools, and installs all of them into the box. It takes a minute.

Next, the animation engine. Remotion is the Node project that draws every on-screen visual. Set it up:

cd remotion
npm install
npm run gen
cd ..

npm install pulls in Remotion's own parts. npm run gen builds the list of example shots so the studio can find them. cd .. walks you back up to the project root, where the rest of the work happens.

Want proof it worked? See the example first, with no footage and no recording:

cd remotion && npm run studio

That opens Remotion Studio in your browser with 37 real shots from a video I already published. Click any one and it plays. This is the fastest way to see what the project makes before you shoot a single frame.

Close the studio with Ctrl+C in the terminal, and cd .. back to the root when you are done looking.

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Step 6: Add your API keys

The project reads your keys from one file. You make that file by copying the example:

copy .env.example .env

On Mac or Linux that is cp .env.example .env. The .env file is a plain text file for your secret keys. It is git-ignored, which means it never gets uploaded anywhere. Open it in VS Code and paste your keys in.

Two things keep your first run cheap. The voice cleanup step has a free method that runs on your own computer, called RNNoise, no key and no cost. ElevenLabs is the better result on hard noise, but RNNoise is often enough. And YouTube is different from the three keys above: it does not use a key here, it uses a one-time browser sign-in called OAuth, set up when you are ready to upload (the steps are in the repo's tools/yt_upload_SETUP.md).

So the honest minimum to try the whole idea is one free AssemblyAI key. That is it.

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Step 7: Drop in your raw video

The project ships with an empty videos/ folder. That is on purpose. Your camera files are yours, so they do not come in the box.

Make a folder for your first video and put your recording in it:

videos/video-1/your-recording.mp4

You do not need to build any of the other folders. The skills create what they need as they go. One raw file in one folder is the whole job here.

And remember what you are recording: yourself, talking. That is the entire shot list. Every other thing on screen gets built by the project, not filmed by you.

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Step 8: Ask Claude to cut it, then walk the pipeline

Now the fun part. Go back to your terminal where Claude Code is running, and just ask, in plain English:

clean cut videos/video-1

That is it. Claude picks the cut skill on its own, transcribes your video, reads what you actually said, and removes the silences, the filler words, and the bad takes. You review, it renders a clean version. No menus, no timeline, no editor.

From there you walk down the line, one plain sentence at a time:

1. clean cut videos/video-1 for the cut
2. add TSX beats to video-1 for the animations and on-screen visuals
3. clean the audio for video-1 to isolate your voice
4. suggest sfx for video-1 for sound effects on the exact word
5. package this video for one title and three thumbnails
6. then upload it as a private draft

Each step hands its work to the next, in this order: cut, visuals, voice, sound, packaging, upload. You approve as you go.

Want the frame-by-frame tour of what each step actually does, why AssemblyAI over Whisper, how the fake screen recordings get built, why the sound lands on the exact word? Read the companion guide: Claude Code Video Editing, from raw recording to published video. This page got you set up. That one goes deep on each step.

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The 8 skills, one line each

You will hear these names as you work. Here is every skill in the project, one line each, in the order you meet them.

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Make it your channel

The project ships with a house look, a calm indigo style. It is real and you can keep it. But if you change nothing, your videos will carry someone else's brand. So run this once, before your first video:

/brand-setup

It asks you about your colors, fonts, wordmark, and the feel you want, then sets it all up and shows you a preview card so you see your brand before you build a video in it.

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What it costs

The project is free and open source, MIT licensed. The services it calls are not, and I would rather tell you now than let you find out later.

These are your own keys on your own accounts. Nothing here is a subscription to me. Prices move, so check each provider before you plan a big batch around any number.

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FAQ

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What this is part of

Strip the video away and this guide taught one habit: you do not do the hard job yourself, you point a set of small, sharp tools at it and direct them. Here the job was a YouTube video. In a real product it is your app, your data, your deploy, wired the same way.

That is the thing I actually teach. Build With AI 1.0 is a full course that walks you from an empty folder to a deployed AI product:

• Building a real AI app with Python and Django, start to finish
• Wiring AI models into real features, the same pattern this project uses
• Directing AI with skills and playbooks instead of copy-paste-and-hope
• Auth, payments, and shipping to real users

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• Updated July 2026
• Stack Claude Code + Remotion
• Tested on Windows 11
• Setup ~45 minutes
• Difficulty Beginner

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Related

• Solo Builder Hub every build-with-AI tutorial on the site
• Claude Code Video Editing the companion tour, what each step does and why it works
• Consistent AI Characters a full narrated, illustrated story with Claude Code, and the video the example shots came from
• Free AI Images With Claude Code + Cloudflare about 170 images a day at $0

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