capcut-cli

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Disclaimer: This is an independent, community-maintained project. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by CapCut, JianYing, or ByteDance Ltd. "CapCut" and "JianYing" (剪映) are trademarks of ByteDance Ltd. All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners and are used here only for identification (nominative) purposes.

An independent CLI for CapCut / JianYing that any LLM agent can drive — zero dependencies, no server, both namespaces in one binary.

JSON in, JSON out: every command reads and writes the local draft store directly, with no MCP server or HTTP daemon. On newer CapCut versions it detects and synchronizes every readable timeline target instead of assuming draft_content.json is the only source of truth. That gives any model (Claude, DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi) a deterministic boundary for inspection, building, subtitles, captions, translation, and long-form cuts.

Use it three ways:

• CLI — npm install -g capcut-cli, then capcut <command> <project>
• Library — import { loadDraft, lintDraft, saveDraft } from "capcut-cli" (typed, zero-dep)
• Queue runner — capcut serve reads JSONL jobs from stdin, for n8n / Make / Coze

New in v0.15.0: a write-time version guard that refuses beyond-evidence or known-broken drafts unless --force-write, in-place segment deletion with orphaned-material cleanup (remove), raw store resource ids, working --intensity, and whole-timeline --full on add-filter/add-effect, experimental per-segment --bind on add-effect, and lint unknown-slug coverage extended to transitions, masks, sound effects, bubbles, and fonts. Full details in the changelog.

New in v0.14.0: duplicate a segment onto an overlay track above its source (duplicate), repair missing draft registration on existing drafts (register), read + edit the source-material crop (crop --ratio | --rect), per-word keyword emphasis and per-cue colour cycling for captions (--highlight-words, --keyword-size, --color-cycle on caption/import-srt), and UTF-8 BOM tolerance on every file the CLI reads. Full details in the changelog.

Install

Prerequisites: Node ≥ 18 (built-ins only — no native modules). Optional tools unlock specific commands: Whisper for caption, FFmpeg for render, ffprobe for automatic media metadata, and ANTHROPIC_API_KEY for translate.

npm install -g capcut-cli      # or: npx capcut-cli <command>

Build from source instead: git clone https://github.com/renezander030/capcut-cli && cd capcut-cli && npm install && npm run build (then npm link to expose capcut).

Quickstart

capcut doctor                                  # verify Node, FFmpeg, whisper, draft dirs
capcut quickstart my-first --video clip.mp4    # create + add input + lint, prints the "open in CapCut" step
capcut info ./my-first/                         # inspect the draft (add -H for a table)

Then open the project in CapCut to review and render. Every short-video platform forbids automated upload, so the publish click stays human.

Commands

JSON by default (pipe to jq); add -H for a human-readable table. Pass --jianying to use the JianYing enum namespace. Run capcut <command> --help for full flags.

Full reference for every command, option, and exit code: docs/command-reference.md.

Sponsor

capcut-cli is MIT and free forever. Sponsoring funds faster releases and same-week support for new CapCut / JianYing versions — and unlocks power-user extras:

• $5/mo · Supporter — sponsors-only release notes plus your name in BACKERS.md. Keep the project moving.
• $25/mo · Pro — invite to the private capcut-cli-pro repo: premium template and caption-style packs, the full Claude viral-shorts pipeline, ready-to-run compile specs, and early-access builds. Plus priority issue triage.
• $100/mo · Team — everything in Pro for up to 5 teammates, written commercial-use confirmation, your logo in this README, and priority fast-tracking of the features your team needs.

Become a sponsor →

Using capcut-cli at work? The Team tier pays for itself the first afternoon it saves your engineers.

How it works

CapCut/JianYing store each project as local JSON. capcut-cli loads that store, validates against a version-aware schema, applies your edit, and writes it back atomically (with a .bak). No project files are uploaded anywhere; nothing runs as a service. See docs/version-support.md for the CapCut/JianYing versions and schema flags it understands.

Docs & examples

• docs/command-reference.md — every command and flag
• examples/ — end-to-end recipes (VO alignment, serve automation, batch subtitle correction)
• docs/version-support.md · docs/jianying-encryption.md
• CHANGELOG.md · Releases — what's new
• draftcat — sibling project: governed AI pipelines (Go, MIT), same single-binary, no-API design

Trademarks

CapCut™ and JianYing™ (剪映) are trademarks of ByteDance Ltd. This project is unofficial and is not affiliated with or endorsed by ByteDance; the marks are used nominatively to describe interoperability.

License

MIT