Kanban Video Orchestrator

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, 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.

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.

For mapping role → which Hermes skills + toolsets it loads, see 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/<slug>/)
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 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:

hermes kanban watch --tenant <project-tenant>     # live events
hermes kanban list  --tenant <project-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.