OpenVids

OpenVids is an open-source, agent-first desktop video editor for macOS and Windows, published under the bazodev GitHub account. You describe the video in chat, and agents cut footage, build the timeline, add captions and motion graphics, then render and check the result. Editing, analysis and rendering run on the user's machine, and projects are folders of plain files.

What It Is

OpenVids pairs a full manual editor (timeline, preview, inspector and code view) with a chat-driven agent system. A Director agent plans the work and delegates to specialists: Editor, Vision, Motion Designer, Research and Audio. Their edits land in the project files, so the timeline and preview update while they work. Agents call the model provider the user connects with their own API key.

How the workflow runs

For long recordings, the app analyses transcripts with word timestamps, speaker detection, pauses, shots and retakes locally, then uses that analysis to build a rough cut. Story mode lays the video out as a graph of chapters that agents review and build into a timeline. Voiceover can be generated through the user's own text-to-speech key. Design systems let users save and reapply a project's look.

Research, licenses and render QA

The Research agent finds and imports outside material from allowed sources, keeping each asset's origin, author and license. Unknown or restricted licenses trigger warnings on export but do not block it. After an agent turn, the render is checked for black or frozen picture, audio holes, layout problems and wrong footage, and agents correct what they find. Each prompt is one checkpoint that can be reverted as a whole.

Setup path

Prebuilt downloads are a .dmg for Apple Silicon (macOS 11+) and an installer for Windows 10+ on x64. Rendering needs Chrome and FFmpeg installed on the machine. The README describes the project as early stage and notes the builds are not notarized or code-signed.