aiclip is an AI-powered CLI that translates natural language into safe, previewable ffmpeg commands. Built for developers, content creators, and anyone who works with media files but doesn't want to memorize complex syntax.

✨ Why aiclip?

🤖 AI-Native: Translate plain English to perfect ffmpeg commands
🔒 Safety First: Preview every command before execution
⚡ 10x Faster: Skip the documentation, Stack Overflow, and trial-and-error
🎯 Battle-Tested: Generates reliable, production-ready commands
🔄 Smart Defaults: Sensible codec and quality settings out of the box

# Instead of this...
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "scale=1280:720" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -b:v 2000k output.mp4

# Just say this...
aiclip "convert input.mp4 to 720p with good quality"

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

# Install from PyPI
pip install ai-ffmpeg-cli

# Or with Homebrew (coming soon)
brew install aiclip

Setup

# Set your OpenAI API key
export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-your-key-here"

# Or create a .env file
echo "OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-key-here" > .env

First Command

# Interactive mode - just describe what you want
aiclip
> convert this video to 720p
┌───┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ # │ Command                                                  │
├───┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 1 │ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf scale=1280:720 -c:v libx264... │
└───┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Run these commands? [Y/n]

📖 Usage Examples

Video Processing

# Convert formats
aiclip "convert input.mov to mp4 with h264 and aac"

# Resize videos  
aiclip "downscale video.mp4 to 720p"
aiclip "make input.mp4 1080p resolution"

# Compress files
aiclip "compress large-video.mp4 to smaller size"
aiclip "reduce file size with CRF 23"

Audio Operations

# Extract audio
aiclip "extract audio from movie.mp4 to mp3"
aiclip "get audio track from video as wav"

# Remove audio
aiclip "remove audio from video.mp4"

Trimming & Cutting

# Time-based cutting
aiclip "trim first 30 seconds from video.mp4"
aiclip "keep segment from 2:15 to 3:45 in input.mp4"
aiclip "cut out middle 5 minutes"

Image Extraction

# Thumbnails
aiclip "create thumbnail at 10 seconds from video.mp4"
aiclip "extract frame at 2:30 as PNG"

# Frame sequences
aiclip "extract one frame every 5 seconds"
aiclip "get all frames from video as images"

Advanced Operations

# Overlays
aiclip "add watermark logo.png to top-right of video.mp4"  
aiclip "overlay text on video at position 10:10"

# Batch processing
aiclip "convert all .mov files to .mp4"

🎛️ Command Line Options

# One-shot mode (no interaction)
aiclip "your command here"

# Skip confirmation prompts  
aiclip --yes "convert video.mp4 to 720p"

# Preview only (don't execute)
aiclip --dry-run "compress input.mp4"

# Use different AI model
aiclip --model gpt-4o-mini "extract audio"

# Increase timeout for complex requests
aiclip --timeout 120 "complex processing task"

# Verbose logging for troubleshooting
aiclip --verbose "your command"

🔧 Configuration

aiclip uses environment variables and .env files for configuration:

# Required
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-openai-api-key

# Optional
AICLIP_MODEL=gpt-4o              # AI model to use
AICLIP_DRY_RUN=false            # Preview commands by default

🎯 Smart Defaults & Safety

Preview First: Every command is shown before execution
Overwrite Protection: Warns before overwriting existing files
Sensible Codecs: Automatically chooses h264+aac for MP4, libx265 for compression
Stream Copy: Uses -c copy for trimming when possible (faster, lossless)
Context Aware: Scans your directory to suggest input files and durations

📊 Supported Operations

Operation	Examples	ffmpeg Equivalent
Convert	"convert to mp4", "make it h264"	`-c:v libx264 -c:a aac`
Resize	"720p", "1920x1080", "scale to 50%"	`-vf scale=1280:720`
Compress	"make smaller", "CRF 28"	`-c:v libx265 -crf 28`
Extract Audio	"get audio as mp3"	`-q:a 0 -map a`
Trim	"first 30 seconds", "2:15 to 3:45"	`-ss 00:02:15 -to 00:03:45`
Thumbnail	"frame at 10s"	`-ss 00:00:10 -vframes 1`
Overlay	"watermark top-right"	`-filter_complex overlay=W-w-10:10`
Batch	"all *.mov files"	Shell loops with glob patterns

🛠️ Development

# Clone and setup
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ai-ffmpeg-cli.git
cd ai-ffmpeg-cli
make setup

# Run tests
make test

# Check code quality  
make lint

# Try demo commands
make demo

📋 Requirements

Python 3.10+ (uses modern type hints)
ffmpeg installed and available in PATH
- macOS: brew install ffmpeg
- Ubuntu: sudo apt install ffmpeg
- Windows: Download from ffmpeg.org
OpenAI API key for natural language processing

🆘 Troubleshooting

Common Issues

"OPENAI_API_KEY is required"

# Set your API key
export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-your-key-here"
# Or add it to .env file

"ffmpeg not found in PATH"

# Install ffmpeg
brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Ubuntu
# Windows: download from ffmpeg.org

"Failed to parse natural language prompt"

Try being more specific in your request
Use --model gpt-4o for better accuracy
Increase timeout with --timeout 120
Check your internet connection

"No input files found"

Ensure files exist in current directory
Check file extensions match your request
Use ls to verify available files

Getting Help

📖 Documentation: Full guides at [docs link]
💬 Discord: Join our community for real-time help
🐛 Issues: Report bugs on GitHub Issues
💡 Discussions: Feature requests and Q&A on GitHub Discussions

🤝 Contributing

We love contributions! Whether it's:

🐛 Bug reports and feature requests
📖 Documentation improvements
🧪 Test cases for edge scenarios
💻 Code contributions for new features
🎨 Examples and tutorials

See our Contributing Guide to get started.

📈 What's Next?

🔄 Batch Templates: Save and reuse complex workflows
🎛️ GUI Mode: Visual interface for non-CLI users
⚡ Local Models: Run without internet using local AI
🏢 Team Features: Shared commands and analytics
🔌 Integrations: GitHub Actions, Docker, CI/CD pipelines

📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

⭐ Support

If aiclip saves you time, please:

⭐ Star this repository
🐦 Share on social media
📝 Write a review or blog post
💬 Tell your developer friends

Made with ❤️ by developers who got tired of Googling ffmpeg commands
_{🎬 Turn your words into perfect video commands}