AI Assistant

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Using GL Motion Outside the App

GreenLight Motion is also an open-source agent skill, published by WPSoul under the MIT licence at github.com/wpsoul/greenlight-motion. It is the same skill that ships inside GreenLight Dash, packaged as a Claude Code plugin that also works with any agent that reads Agent Skills (Codex, Antigravity CLI and others). You can make films on any machine, with or without the app, and bring them into GreenLight Dash later.

You don’t need the plugin inside GreenLight Dash: the app ships the skill, and the GL Motion Film terminal preset or AI Motion Design starts it. See Starting a Film.

What changes outside the app

The workflow is the same (scenario, storyboard, preview, voice-over, sound, render, exports), but without a board there is no pipeline:

The scenario, storyboard and gallery are pages. An agent that can publish artifacts publishes them; otherwise it opens the page in your browser.
The preview runs on a small local server the agent starts, and your edits are saved into the film’s project. In the guided workflow, the preview has working Render and Export buttons; in quick mode it has none, and the agent renders after you approve it in the chat.
Renders and exports are files in the film’s project folder: renders/ for videos and exports/ for the Video Editor project and the After Effects package.
The voice-over comes from your own recordings, or from a quick draft voice on macOS. The board’s text-to-speech models need the app.

Install

Claude Code. The repository is both the plugin and its own marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add wpsoul/greenlight-motion
/plugin install greenlight-motion@greenlight-motion

To try a local copy without installing it, clone the repository and start Claude Code with it as a plugin folder:

git clone https://github.com/wpsoul/greenlight-motion
claude --plugin-dir greenlight-motion

Any agent that reads Agent Skills. Copy the skills/greenlight-motion folder into the agent’s skills folder (for Claude Code: ~/.claude/skills/greenlight-motion), or tell the agent to use the skill at skills/greenlight-motion/SKILL.md in your copy.

Requirements

Tool	What it is for	Get it
Node.js 18 or later	Every tool of the skill (there’s nothing to `npm install`)	nodejs.org
Python 3.9 or later with Playwright	Website screenshots, review stills and rendering	python.org · Playwright for Python
ffmpeg (with ffprobe)	Rendering, mixing the voice-over and sound effects, review sheets	ffmpeg.org

Without Python and ffmpeg the agent still writes the scenario and the storyboard’s words, builds the preview and makes the Video Editor export. The website capture then reads the page’s text, colours and logo but takes no screenshots, the storyboard and the After Effects package have no stills, and there is no rendered video.

Check your machine

node skills/greenlight-motion/tools/doctor.mjs

The doctor lists what works (the scenario, storyboard, preview and exports; website capture with or without screenshots; review stills; rendering; voice-over and sound effects) and prints the exact install commands for anything missing, with the right paths for your install. The agent runs it too before the first render, but it never installs anything by itself.

macOS

Install Homebrew if you don’t have it, then install the three tools:

brew install node python ffmpeg

Then give the render engine its own Python with Playwright:

python3 -m venv ~/.greenlight-motion/venv
~/.greenlight-motion/venv/bin/pip install -r skills/greenlight-motion/render/requirements.txt
~/.greenlight-motion/venv/bin/python -m playwright install chromium

Windows (PowerShell)

Install the three tools with winget, or with the installers from nodejs.org, python.org (tick “Add python.exe to PATH”) and gyan.dev (add its bin folder to PATH):

winget install OpenJS.NodeJS.LTS
winget install Python.Python.3.12
winget install Gyan.FFmpeg

Open a new terminal, then give the render engine its own Python with Playwright:

py -m venv "$HOME\.greenlight-motion\venv"
& "$HOME\.greenlight-motion\venv\Scripts\pip.exe" install -r skills\greenlight-motion\render\requirements.txt
& "$HOME\.greenlight-motion\venv\Scripts\python.exe" -m playwright install chromium

Linux (Debian, Ubuntu)

Install Node.js 18 or later from nodejs.org (older distributions ship an older one), then Python and ffmpeg:

sudo apt install python3 python3-venv ffmpeg

Then give the render engine its own Python with Playwright:

python3 -m venv ~/.greenlight-motion/venv
~/.greenlight-motion/venv/bin/pip install -r skills/greenlight-motion/render/requirements.txt
~/.greenlight-motion/venv/bin/python -m playwright install --with-deps chromium

The tools find ~/.greenlight-motion/venv by themselves. Any other Python with Playwright works too: set GL_MOTION_PYTHON to its path. An installed Chrome or Edge can stand in for the playwright install chromium step.

Start a film

From the brief page

The brief page asks the same questions as the app’s AI Motion Design, on a visual page instead of in chat: the product, the film, the look (brand-new or the library, with the whole library playing to pick from), the motion and what to deliver.

node skills/greenlight-motion/tools/brief.mjs my-film

Open the address it prints and answer the six steps. The last step saves my-film/brief.json and copies a prompt with the paths to the skill, the brief and the project. Paste it into Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity CLI or any agent that reads skills. The agent asks only what the brief leaves open.

When an agent opens the brief page for you, it waits for you to finish the page and then carries on by itself.

By asking

Just ask your agent for a film, for example:

Make a 15-second promo for our spring sale. The code is SPRING50, it ends May 3, and here are two product photos.

That is quick mode: the agent decides everything itself, builds the film and shows it in the preview, where you edit anything and approve the render. It asks nothing first unless it doesn’t know what the film is about.

Say “step by step” (or pick it on the brief page) for the guided way, where you approve each stage:

The agent asks its questions, or reads your brief.
It writes the scenario: the story in words, and for brand-new motion graphics also the art direction. You approve it.
It shows a storyboard with two or three directions: a still per shot, with every line of its copy and its part of the voice-over. You pick one and correct the words.
It builds the preview. You click anything to change it, or change the film’s colours and font, and approve it. The agent reads your changes and renders with them.
It records the voice-over in long, continuous takes, and adds sound effects if you want them.
It renders and exports.

The film’s project folder is greenlight-motion/ followed by the film’s name, in the agent’s working folder.

The preview on your machine

The preview works as described in Editing the Film Preview: click anything to change it, drag it, double-click words to type over them, and use the Design tab for the film’s colours and font. On the local server your changes are saved into the film’s project, and the agent reads them when you approve.

In the guided workflow, the green Export button in the top bar opens the delivery panel:

Render a video — MP4 (plays anywhere), WebM alpha (transparent, for the web) or ProRes 4444 (transparent, for editing), with a Motion blur switch (smoother fast moves, slower render).
Export for editing — GLEA (for the GreenLight Dash Video Editor: every scene as an HTML clip, with the voice-over and sound effects on their own tracks) or After Effects (a package with a prompt for an agent that rebuilds the film in After Effects; After Effects must be installed and open, on macOS).

Back or Esc closes the panel, and a dot on the Export button shows whether a job is running, done or failed.

Voice-over and sound effects

Voice-over — give the agent your own recordings, one file per take or line, and it places them and cuts the picture to them. On macOS it can also record a quick draft with the system voice, for timing rather than for the final film.
Sound effects — the agent uses the GreenLight Dash Sound Library on the same computer when the app is installed, or any folder of sound files you give it. With neither, it asks you for a folder of sounds or to install the app’s Motion Design Pack.

See Voice-Over and Sound Effects for how takes and sound cues work.

Bring a film into GreenLight Dash

The GLEA export is a .zip in the project’s exports/ folder. In the GreenLight Dash Video Editor, click Import in the toolbar and choose the .zip: the app copies its media into the current board and creates the project, with every scene as an HTML clip and the voice-over and sound effects on their own channels. See HTML Clips.

Updating

Claude Code:

claude plugin marketplace update greenlight-motion
claude plugin update greenlight-motion@greenlight-motion

Restart Claude Code afterwards. If you copied the skill folder instead, copy the new version over it.

Where to go next

GreenLight Motion — what GL Motion makes and how it works in the app
Editing the Film Preview — the preview’s panels and editing
Rendering and Exports — the Video Editor project and the After Effects package
Using the Board with Hermes, OpenClaw and External Agent systems — connect your own agent to a GreenLight Dash board