--- name: kanban-video-orchestrator description: Plan, set up, and monitor a multi-agent video production pipeline backed by Hermes Kanban. Use when the user wants to make ANY video — narrative film, product/marketing, music video, explainer, ASCII/terminal art, abstract/generative loop, comic, 3D, real-time/installation — and the work warrants decomposition into specialized profiles (writer, designer, animator, renderer, voice, editor, etc.) coordinated through a kanban board. Performs adaptive discovery to scope the brief, designs an appropriate team for the requested style, generates the setup script that creates Hermes profiles + initial kanban task, then helps monitor execution and intervene when tasks stall or fail. Routes scenes to whichever Hermes rendering / audio / design skill fits each beat (`ascii-video`, `manim-video`, `p5js`, `comfyui`, `touchdesigner-mcp`, `blender-mcp`, `pixel-art`, `baoyu-comic`, `claude-design`, `excalidraw`, `songsee`, `heartmula`, …) plus external APIs for TTS, image-gen, and image-to-video as needed. version: 1.0.0 author: [SHL0MS, alt-glitch] license: MIT metadata: hermes: tags: [video, kanban, multi-agent, orchestration, production-pipeline] related_skills: [kanban-orchestrator, kanban-worker, ascii-video, manim-video, p5js, comfyui, touchdesigner-mcp, blender-mcp, pixel-art, ascii-art, songwriting-and-ai-music, heartmula, songsee, spotify, youtube-content, claude-design, excalidraw, architecture-diagram, concept-diagrams, baoyu-comic, baoyu-infographic, humanizer, gif-search, meme-generation] credits: | The single-project workspace layout, profile-config patching pattern, SOUL.md-per-profile model, TEAM.md task-graph convention, and `--workspace dir:` discipline are adapted from alt-glitch's original multi-agent video pipeline at https://github.com/NousResearch/kanban-video-pipeline. --- # Kanban Video Orchestrator Wrap any video request — from a 15-second product teaser to a 5-minute narrative short to a music video to an ASCII loop — in a Hermes Kanban pipeline that decomposes the work to specialized agent profiles. This skill does **not** render anything itself. It is a meta-pipeline that: 1. **Scopes** the request through targeted discovery 2. **Designs** an appropriate team (which roles, which tools per role) based on the style 3. **Generates** a setup script that creates Hermes profiles, project workspace, and the initial kanban task 4. **Hands off** to the director profile, which decomposes via the kanban 5. **Monitors** execution, helps intervene when tasks stall or fail The actual rendering happens inside the kanban once it's running, via whichever existing skills + tools fit the scenes — `ascii-video`, `manim-video`, `p5js`, `comfyui`, `touchdesigner-mcp`, `blender-mcp`, `songwriting-and-ai-music`, `heartmula`, external APIs, or plain Python with PIL + ffmpeg. ## When NOT to use this skill - The video is one continuous procedural project that needs no specialists. Just write the code directly. - The user wants a quick one-shot conversion (e.g. "convert this mp4 to a GIF") — use ffmpeg directly. - The output is a static image, GIF, or audio-only artifact — use the matching specific skill (`ascii-art`, `gifs`, `meme-generation`, `songwriting-and-ai-music`). - The work fits a single existing skill cleanly (e.g. a pure ASCII video — just use `ascii-video`). ## Workflow ``` DISCOVER → BRIEF → TEAM DESIGN → SETUP → EXECUTE → MONITOR ``` ### Step 1 — Discover (ask the right questions) The discovery process is **adaptive**: ask only what is actually needed. Always start with three questions to identify the broad shape: - **What is the video?** (one-sentence brief) - **How long?** (5-30s teaser / 30-90s short / 90s-3min explainer / 3-10min film / longer) - **What aspect ratio + target platform?** (1:1 / 9:16 / 16:9; X, IG, YouTube, internal, etc.) From the answer, classify the style category. The style determines which follow-up questions to ask. **Do not ask all questions at once.** Ask 2-4 at a time, listen, then proceed. Make reasonable assumptions whenever the user implies an answer. For complete intake patterns and per-style question banks, see **[references/intake.md](references/intake.md)**. ### Step 2 — Brief Once enough is known, produce a structured `brief.md` using the template in `assets/brief.md.tmpl`. Stages: 1. **Concept** — the one-sentence pitch + emotional north star 2. **Scope** — duration, aspect, platform, deadline 3. **Style** — visual references, brand constraints, tone 4. **Scenes** — beat-by-beat breakdown (durations, content, target tool) 5. **Audio** — narration / music / SFX / silent (per scene if needed) 6. **Deliverables** — file format, resolution, optional alternates (vertical cut, GIF, etc.) Show the brief to the user for confirmation before designing the team. **The brief is the contract** — every downstream task references it. ### Step 3 — Team design Pick role archetypes from the library that fit this video. **Compose, don't clone.** Most videos need 4-7 profiles. The director is always present; the rest are picked by what the brief actually requires. For the role library and per-style team compositions, see **[references/role-archetypes.md](references/role-archetypes.md)**. For mapping role → which Hermes skills + toolsets it loads, see **[references/tool-matrix.md](references/tool-matrix.md)**. ### Step 4 — Setup Generate a setup script (`setup.sh`) and run it. The script: 1. Creates the project workspace (`~/projects/video-pipeline//`) 2. Copies any provided assets into `taste/`, `audio/`, `assets/` 3. Creates each Hermes profile via `hermes profile create --clone` 4. Writes per-profile `SOUL.md` (personality + role definition) 5. Configures profile YAML (toolsets, always_load skills, cwd) 6. Writes `brief.md`, `TEAM.md`, and `taste/` content 7. Fires the initial `hermes kanban create` task assigned to the director Use `scripts/bootstrap_pipeline.py` to generate setup.sh from a brief + team-design JSON. See **[references/kanban-setup.md](references/kanban-setup.md)** for the setup script structure, profile config patterns, and the critical "shared workspace" rule. ### Step 5 — Execute Run `setup.sh`. Then provide the user with monitoring commands: ```bash hermes kanban watch --tenant # live events hermes kanban list --tenant # board snapshot hermes dashboard # visual board UI ``` The director profile takes over from here, decomposing the work and routing tasks to specialist profiles via the kanban toolset. ### Step 6 — Monitor and intervene Stay engaged — the kanban runs autonomously but a stuck task or bad output needs human (or AI) judgment. Monitoring patterns: poll `kanban list` periodically, inspect any RUNNING task that exceeds its expected duration with `kanban show `, and check heartbeats. When a worker's output fails review, the standard interventions are: 1. Comment on the worker's task with specific feedback (`kanban_comment`) 2. Create a re-run task with the original as parent 3. Adjust the brief's scope and let the director re-decompose For diagnostic patterns, intervention recipes, and the "task is stuck" playbook, see **[references/monitoring.md](references/monitoring.md)**. ## Reference: worked examples Six concrete pipelines covering very different video styles — narrative film, product/marketing, music video, math/algorithm explainer, ASCII video, real-time installation — showing how the same workflow yields very different teams and task graphs. See **[references/examples.md](references/examples.md)**. ## Critical rules 1. **Discovery before action.** Never start generating a brief or team without asking at least the three baseline questions. A bad brief cascades through the entire pipeline. 2. **Match the team to the video.** Don't reuse the same 4-profile setup for every job. A music video that doesn't have a beat-analysis profile will misfire. A narrative film that doesn't have a writer profile will produce incoherent scenes. See `references/role-archetypes.md`. 3. **One workspace per project.** All profiles for a given video share the same `dir:` workspace. Tasks pass artifacts via shared filesystem and structured handoffs. **Every** `kanban_create` call passes `workspace_kind="dir"` + `workspace_path=""`. 4. **Tenant every project.** Use a project-specific tenant (`--tenant `). Keeps the dashboard scoped and prevents cross-pollination with other ongoing kanbans. 5. **Respect existing skills.** When a scene fits an existing skill, the relevant renderer should load that skill via `--skill ` on its task or `always_load` in its profile. Do not re-derive what a skill already provides. 6. **The director never executes.** Even with the full `kanban + terminal + file` toolset, the director's `SOUL.md` rules forbid it from executing work itself. It decomposes and routes only — every concrete task becomes a `hermes kanban create` call to a specialist profile. The `kanban-orchestrator` skill spells this out further. 7. **Don't over-decompose.** A 30-second product video does NOT need 20 tasks. Aim for the smallest task graph that still parallelizes well and exposes the right human-review gates. 8. **Verify API keys BEFORE firing.** External APIs (TTS, image-gen, image-to-video) need keys in `~/.hermes/.env` or the user's secret store. A worker that hits a missing-key error wastes a task slot. The setup script's `check_key` helper aborts cleanly if a required key is missing. ## File map ``` SKILL.md ← this file (workflow + rules) references/ intake.md ← discovery question banks per style role-archetypes.md ← role library (writer, designer, animator, …) tool-matrix.md ← skill + toolset mapping per role kanban-setup.md ← setup script structure & profile config monitoring.md ← watch + intervene patterns examples.md ← six worked pipelines assets/ brief.md.tmpl ← brief skeleton setup.sh.tmpl ← setup script skeleton soul.md.tmpl ← profile personality skeleton scripts/ bootstrap_pipeline.py ← generate setup.sh from brief + team JSON monitor.py ← polling + intervention helpers ```