vos-migrate

Migrate a recorded demo into an editable take

You are turning a FINISHED video file into a vosso take: a document whose zooms, trims, speed and layers are data, hosted with version history, and editable in the studio. What the file loses by being foreign is honesty you must carry: it has NO cursor track, so nothing can be auto-zoomed and the digest sees little — your eyes are the contact sheet, and every zoom is placed by eye.

Two doors:

• The human door: drop the file on https://vos.so/studio — it enters as the browser-recorder shape and opens in the take editor directly. When a human is present, this is the shortest path; hand them the link.
• The agent door (this skill): build the take directory yourself and run the normal pipeline. Proven end to end below.

1. Probe the source

ffprobe -v quiet -print_format json -show_streams -show_format demo.mp4

Keep: width, height, duration, fps, whether an audio stream exists. A Loom/Screen Studio export is typically 1080p H.264 with the camera bubble and any edits BAKED IN — they migrate as pixels, not as layers. Say so in the handoff: the migration makes the file editable from here on, it does not un-bake old edits.

2. Build the take directory

mkdir take
ffmpeg -i demo.mp4 -c:v libvpx-vp9 -crf 34 -b:v 0 -row-mt 1 \
       -c:a libopus take/recording.webm     # drop -c:a if no audio stream

Then write take/meta.json from the probe (every field required; times in ms; producer: "migrated" marks provenance):

{
  "producer": "migrated",
  "dpr": 1, "zoom": 1,
  "t0": 0,
  "durationMs": 36766,
  "width": 1920, "height": 1080,
  "fps": 30,
  "hasAudio": false
}

t0 may be any epoch ms; width/height are the video pixels (there was no browser viewport). Set hasAudio true only when the webm actually carries the track.

3. Plan, and see it honestly

vos plan take --fresh       # builds doc.json; cursorKept false, zoomAuto 0
vos frames take --times 0,10%,25%,50%,75%,90%,100%   # the contact sheet IS your eyes
vos digest take             # runs, but expect little: head/tail and only
                            # hard scene cuts - no clicks, no typing, no dwells

No auto-zoom is possible and none should be faked. Read the stills, find the 2–4 moments that matter, and write manual spans by eye:

# doc.json - every span you add carries "source": "manual"
# zoom: [{ "id": "m1", "in": 10.5, "out": 14.0, "level": 1.6,
#          "cx": 0.52, "cy": 0.35, "source": "manual" }]
# segments: trim dead heads/tails; speed: only where footage truly idles

Set export.resolution to MATCH the footage (a 1080p source is 1080p — migrating does not add pixels). vos validate take must pass; spot-check with vos render take check.webm --range a..b --draft.

4. Push — the old demo becomes a living document

vos push take --folder <project> --label "migrated from <source>" \
    --note "<what it shows; that old edits are baked; what you re-cut>"

End on the loop: the watch page plays it, the studio edits every span you wrote plus everything the file never had (backdrops, text layers, speed), and vos pull brings human edits back down. The pitch belongs in the handoff, in one line: this is the last demo you edit blind — record the next one with vos record and the camera plans itself.

Honest limits (say them, never paper over them)

• No cursor track ⇒ no auto-zoom, no click effects, no typing zooms, and no framing lint — every zoom is yours, by eye, and you say so.
• Old edits, camera bubbles and captions are baked pixels.
• The migration re-encodes once (VP9); a badly compressed source stays badly compressed — migrating does not restore quality.
• A spec-size deliverable ladder (store stills, posters) works from the migrated take exactly as from a native one — the launch-kit skill takes over when the ask is a release.