Video Assembly

Mission

Create the final draft timeline from approved parent/child clips. Keep clip order, duration, gaps, transitions, audio treatment, captions, and export settings explicit so another editor or agent can reproduce the assembly.

Use Video Editing when the source itself needs a visual transformation or extension. Use this skill when the shots are already approved and the primary task is the cut, package, or handoff.

Required inputs

• ordered clip IDs or URLs and each clip's parent, duration, ratio, and status;
• in/out points, intentional gaps, transitions, and loop/end-card behavior;
• narration, dialogue, music, ambience, and mix/ducking policy;
• caption source, language, placement, style, and burn-in versus sidecar choice;
• target ratio, resolution, frame rate, container, and filename convention; and
• rights, disclosure, reviewer, and definition of done.

Reject unapproved, missing, private, expired, or mismatched assets instead of silently substituting a nearby clip. If no audio mix or caption renderer is available, return a timeline/EDL handoff and state what remains for local post-production.

Timeline contract

Build a table such as:

Order	Clip	Source parent	In/out	Transition	Audio	Caption state	Approval
1	clip-001	shot-001	0.0–4.0	opening	narration A	pending	accepted

Record actual measured duration after rendering. Distinguish a requested duration from a provider's returned duration and call out gaps, overlaps, black frames, silent sections, and aspect-ratio changes.

Execute

1. Validate that every selected clip is accepted and its hosted URL/asset ID is still usable. Upload local inputs once and preserve provenance.
2. Freeze the ordered timeline and audio/caption decisions before a paid combine call. Ask before broad variants or final upscaling.
3. Use media.combine_video or the live documented utility with explicit order and accepted fields. Do not assume it performs transitions, audio mixing, captions, color correction, or frame extraction.
4. Caption only the approved cut. Proofread names, numbers, timing, line length, safe areas, contrast, and uncertain transcription.
5. Poll the assembly job, retain its receipt, and compare the output against the timeline. Run video QA on the entire export.

Use MODELS.md and muapi-video-tools.md to verify the current combine operation and its accepted fields.

Output contract

Return the timeline, asset manifest, assembly operation/schema, prediction ID, output URL, measured properties, audio/caption status, rights/disclosure state, QA findings, and a local post-production handoff where applicable. Save permitted receipts under .video/ using reports-and-receipts.md.

Assembly is draft-only. Do not publish, overwrite source assets, or represent generated clips as evidence of a real event.