How to Edit Your Reels with Claude Code (Simple Step by Step)

In this guide you'll learn how to hand a raw video to Claude Code and get the finished reel back: with the silences cut, word by word captions, animation on top, and sound effects.

You don't need to know how to edit video. You'll copy a few commands and paste a few requests in plain English.

✅ WHAT YOU'LL NEED

Claude Pro (US$ 20 per month). Claude Code comes included in every paid plan.
A computer (Mac, Windows, or Linux) with Node.js 22 or newer, FFmpeg, and Google Chrome.
HyperFrames, a free, open source program from HeyGen that turns a web page into video.
Your raw video, shot vertically (9:16), straight off your phone.

🧩 STEP 1: Install Node.js and FFmpeg

Node.js runs Claude Code and HyperFrames. FFmpeg puts the video together at the end.

Node.js: download the LTS version from nodejs.org and install it.
FFmpeg on Mac: open Terminal and run brew install ffmpeg
FFmpeg on Windows: open PowerShell and run winget install Gyan.FFmpeg

👉 Tip: close and reopen the terminal after installing, so it can find the programs.

💻 STEP 2: Install Claude Code

In the terminal, run:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Then type claude and log in with your Claude Pro account.

🎬 STEP 3: Add HyperFrames to Claude Code

Still in the terminal, run both commands:

claude plugin marketplace add heygen-com/hyperframes
claude plugin install hyperframes@hyperframes

Done: Claude Code now knows how to build and render video with HyperFrames.

📁 STEP 4: Create the video folder

Create a new folder, for example meu-reels.
Copy your raw video into it with the name bruto.mp4.
Open the terminal in that folder and type claude.

👉 Tip: shot it on an iPhone? It records in HDR, and the video can come out washed out. Ask first: "convert bruto.mp4 from HDR to SDR".

✂️ STEP 5: Ask for the cuts

Paste this request into Claude Code:

Cut bruto.mp4. Remove silences longer than half a second and the sentences I repeated, always keeping the last take of each sentence. Before cutting, transcribe the video with the timing of each word and show me the list of what will be removed. Save the result as cortado.mp4.

Check the list it shows you. If it's about to remove something you want, just say so.

Then paste this second request:

Transcribe each piece left in cortado.mp4 again, one by one, and tell me if any of them starts with a stray word or with a sentence I started and didn't finish.

👉 Tip: transcribing the whole video hides stumbles. When you start "You send..." and stop, it tends to merge that with the next take and show a single sentence. Piece by piece, the stumble shows up.

📝 STEP 6: Ask for captions and animation

Paste this request:

Use HyperFrames to build a 1080x1920 reel with cortado.mp4. My video goes in the bottom half. In the top half, an animation on a light background that shows what I'm talking about in each sentence, with each thing coming in on the word where I mention it. The captions are white, two to four words at a time, and the word I'm saying lights up in yellow. Spell brand names correctly. Use the Montserrat font. Show me the preview before rendering.

To see the preview in the browser, it'll run npx hyperframes preview. Ask for changes the way you'd talk to an editor: "the caption is covering my face, move it up".

If the line between the animation and your video looks harsh, ask:

Make the top of my video fade out gradually over the animation, with a mask of about 250 pixels, not with a color band.

👉 Tip: the color band only works if the animation background is flat. With a moving background, it turns into a step. The mask fades the video itself and works with any background.

🔊 STEP 7: Sound and final render

Add a short sound effect to each thing that shows up in the animation, without landing on top of a word, and a low music track under my voice. Measure the volume of my voice and keep the music about 18 dB below it. Then render the final video to reels-pronto.mp4.

It runs npx hyperframes render and drops the file in the folder.

🔎 STEP 8: Check before posting

Paste this request:

Transcribe reels-pronto.mp4 and compare it sentence by sentence with what I said in cortado.mp4. If any word comes out different, tell me what's playing over it at that second.

👉 Tip: if the transcription of the finished video gets a word wrong that the cortado one got right, some sound is covering your voice. It's almost always the music being too loud or an effect on top of the word.

Finally, ask for the cover:

Make the first frame of the video the cover: the title big at the top and me with my mouth closed below. Also save it as capa.jpg.

⚠️ COMMON MISTAKES

Wrong word in the captions: the transcription gets proper names and slang wrong. Read the captions before the render and send the fix.
Stray word or repeated sentence in the cut: that's a take that slipped through. Ask for the transcription piece by piece, like in Step 5.
Music louder than you asked for: when the music fades in and out, that curve can go over the volume you asked for. Ask it to measure the volume of the finished video, not just adjust it.
White captions on a light background: the face captions spilled into a stretch where the animation takes over the whole screen. Ask for the captions to disappear when the full screen comes in.
Someone else's music: use royalty free or public domain music. An artist's song in your video can get your audio taken down.
Asked for everything at once and it got messy: do one step at a time, like in this guide. Each short request works better than one huge request.

🎯 SUMMARY

You record. Claude Code writes the edit as code, and HyperFrames turns it into video. You check each piece, listen to make sure the sound isn't covering your voice, and ask for changes.