AI Video Editor

Get Claude to edit your videos on your own computer, with no editing software and no editing subscription.

By James Schramko · Updated August 2026

Many of my videos are edited by Claude. I film one line at a time, drop the raw files into a folder on my desktop, and the finished captioned video comes out the other side with a transcript to check. These days I film several videos in one sitting and drag the whole batch in, out-takes included, no labelling, no sorting; the editor works out what belongs together and drops the fluffed takes. I never open an editing app. This playbook gives you the exact starter prompt so your own Claude can build the same thing around the way you film.

The result on my own channel: a good number of the Claude-edited videos have outperformed my earlier videos, and because each edit costs me nothing but the filming, I take more shots. Publishing five videos a day lifted my views 225%. Volume was never possible when every video needed an editor or an editing session.

It spread past my own channel fast. I gave this seed to my own clients, and within a week six of them were generating their own social media videos from scratch. Many of them do not even have an assistant.

What You Need

Claude Code running on your computer, on a paid Claude plan or API billing. That is the whole list. It installs the free tools it needs itself. This workflow uses local tools for transcription, cutting and rendering, so the heavy work happens on your machine. Claude still receives the instructions, the transcripts and any other content the workflow sends to the model. Check the commands and services before using confidential footage.

If you have never used Claude Code, start at claude.com/claude-code and come back when it opens on your computer.

How It Works

You keep doing the talking. The machine does the cutting.

Film your video. One take or one line at a time, whatever suits you.
Drop the raw files into one folder on your desktop.
Claude transcribes every clip, trims the dead air, cuts the stumbles, joins the takes in order, and burns the captions on.
The finished video and its transcript land in an output folder.
You read the words, watch it once, and post it.

No timeline. No editing subscription. No render farm. A normal laptop handles it.

The Seed Prompt

Paste everything below the line into Claude Code as one message and answer its questions. It interviews you first, so it builds the editor around how you film, not how anyone else films.

COPY FROM HERE

You are my video editor on this computer. Interview me first, then build me a local editing setup from my answers, using free tools you install yourself (ask before installing anything and explain each step simply).

Ask me one at a time:

How do I film? One take or one line at a time, portrait or landscape, what camera.

Where should my raw files live? Suggest a single folder on my desktop.

What should captions look like? Colour, position, show me a sample to approve.

Which words must always be spelled correctly? My name, my business, my programs.

Where does the finished work go? Set up an output folder for the finished videos.

Anything else I want done my way. Remember all of it in a settings file.

Then every time I drop clips in the folder: transcribe them, trim the dead air, cut the stumbles, join them in order, caption them to my settings, and give me the finished video plus a transcript to check. Before you hand me anything, check your own work: play the file back, confirm the length matches the cut, and confirm the captions match the audio word for word. Never touch my original files. Use free local tools for the transcription, cutting and rendering, keep my original footage on my own computer, and tell me before you send anything other than my instructions and the transcript to the model.

END OF COPY

Two Lessons From Running This Daily

Audio cannot spell. Transcription hears sounds, not spelling. Your name, your business, your program names, and every apostrophe are guesses until you correct them. Give Claude the always-correct spellings in the interview, and still read the transcript before anything goes up. A caption that says client's when you meant clients' sails straight past your ears; only your eyes catch it.

Make the machine check its own work. The seed prompt tells Claude to verify the finished file before handing it over: length, captions against the audio, playback. Keep that line in. An editor that measures its output beats an editor that assumes, and when something does slip through, tell Claude what you found and ask it to add that check for every future edit. The system gets better every time you catch something.

The Rules That Keep It Safe

Original files are never touched. Every edit works on copies, so a bad edit costs you nothing.
Everything stays on your computer. No uploads, no third-party services, no per-video fees.
You approve every finished video before it goes anywhere. The machine edits; you publish.

Make It Yours

The seed is a starting point, not a finished product. Experiment. Add things, change things, ask for a different caption style, a different folder layout, an extra step that suits how you work. Every request teaches your editor how you want it done, and it remembers. Mine started with one video at a time; now it takes a whole unsorted batch, out-takes and all, because I kept asking it to handle one more thing.

The point of the whole system is speed from idea to published. You think of something worth saying, you film it, and it is up the same day, without hiring an editor and without learning any software. When publishing costs nothing, you publish more, and more shots is how you find out what your audience actually wants.

Start Small

First session: run the seed prompt, answer the interview, and hand it one short test video. Approve the caption sample before it processes anything real. Once one video comes out clean, it is the same routine every day after that.

Cutting footage is the easy part of content. Knowing what to say, which stories carry proof, and what the content is supposed to do for your business is the part that pays, and working that out with someone who has done it for two decades is what Mentor is for.