--- name: ochra-cut description: "Edit the user's own video footage into a finished video with Ochra Cut, through the Ochra connector: upload, analysis, edit documents, previews and the final render. Use when the user wants their clips cut into a reel, a trimmed talking-head video, a captioned edit or any video made from their own footage." --- # Ochra Cut ## What Cut is and how a cut goes Ochra Cut edits the customer's own footage into a finished video. You do the thinking — plan the edit with the customer and write it down as an edit document. Ochra does the hands-on work — taking in the footage, analysing it, rendering previews and the final video — and charges the customer's credits for it. A cut goes like this: 1. `get_cut_guide` — this guide. Costs no credits. 2. `start_cut(title, canvas)` — the canvas is one of 9:16 (1080×1920), 16:9 (1920×1080), 1:1 (1080×1080), 4:5 (1080×1350). It answers with a `cut_id` and an upload link. 3. Footage in. Give the customer the upload link: it opens on a phone or a computer, needs no sign-in, and lasts a day. For a video already in their library, or a share link, use `add_footage`. In Claude Code you can upload files from disk yourself (the "Uploading from Claude Code" topic). 4. `analyze_footage(cut_id)` — a task. Then `get_cut` reads the result: each file's length, a transcript with word times, shot changes, silences, loudness and contact sheets. `view_frames` shows exact stills. 5. Plan the edit with the customer, then write the edit document and call `preview_cut` — it checks the document and shows a still or two. Fix what it reports and preview again. 6. `render_cut` — a task. The finished video lands in the customer's library; show it with `show_media`. For changes, write a new document and render again. Tell the customer what a step costs before you run it, and only run the steps they asked for. A cut keeps its footage, analyses and every document it checked, so a later chat picks up where this one stopped: `get_cut` with no arguments lists the cuts, and with a `cut_id` it shows one, its latest document included on request. ### Making it good - Read before you cut. Page through the transcript with `get_cut` (`transcript: { footage_id, from, to }`), and look at the contact sheets and shot changes; `view_frames` shows the exact moment you are about to cut on. - Reels from clips: open on the strongest moment, not the first one. Keep shots short (one to three seconds for a fast reel), cut on movement or on a shot change the analysis found, and let the music set the pace. Put a title card or a hook in the first two seconds. - Talking heads: cut out the silences the analysis lists and the false starts you can read in the transcript, cutting at word edges from the transcript's word times. Caption with a `data-captions` block rather than writing words by hand — the timing comes from the transcript and stays right. - B-roll and voice-over: the customer's other connected tools can make shots, music and speech. They are ordinary generations at their usual prices — say the price and get a yes first — and each output's `asset_id` goes into the document's media map. - Keep words clear of the edges. On a 9:16 video, phone apps cover the top tenth and the bottom fifth: keep titles and captions between them. - Preview the moments that matter — the title, a caption, a cut, the end — at most 6 per preview, and look at the stills before you render. ## Connecting Cut's tools come with the Ochra connector, as a set of their own (each title starts "Ochra Cut:"), on every connection of an account that has bought credits — no switch turns them on. If you do not see `start_cut`: a connection that may only look lists no `start_cut` (the customer connects again and allows “Use your credits”); an account that has not bought credits gets Cut once it has; otherwise start a new chat. - Claude (web, desktop, phone): Customize → Connectors → + Add → Add custom connector, with the URL `https://www.ochra.io/api/mcp`, then sign in to Ochra and allow it. - Claude Code: `claude mcp add --transport http --scope user ochra https://www.ochra.io/api/mcp`, then `/mcp` → Ochra → Authenticate. Cut is for accounts that have bought credits. Everything about it is on https://www.ochra.io/cut. ## Uploading from Claude Code The upload link from `start_cut` is `https://www.ochra.io/cut/new?cut=&t=`. The same token lets you upload from a terminal: pass it as `?t=` on every call below. A file goes up in parts; each part is PUT straight to storage. ```sh BASE=https://www.ochra.io/api/cut/uploads T= # the t= value from the upload link F=trip.mov # the file # 1. Start: name, size in bytes, type. curl -s "$BASE?t=$T" -H "content-type: application/json" \ -d "{\"name\":\"$F\",\"bytes\":$(wc -c < "$F" | tr -d ' '),\"mime\":\"video/quicktime\"}" # → { "upload_id", "part_bytes", "part_count", … } # 2. URLs for up to 8 parts at a time (numbered from 1): curl -s "$BASE/$UPLOAD/parts?t=$T" -H "content-type: application/json" -d '{"numbers":[1,2,3]}' # → { "parts": [{ "n", "url", "bytes" }], "headers": { … } } # 3. PUT part n: bytes (n-1)*part_bytes onward, part_bytes long (the last part is the rest). dd if="$F" bs=$PART_BYTES skip=$((N-1)) count=1 2>/dev/null | \ curl -s -X PUT "$URL" -H "content-type: application/octet-stream" -H "x-upsert: false" --data-binary @- # 4. Finish. A 409 lists the parts to send again in error.meta.missing. curl -s "$BASE/$UPLOAD?t=$T" -H "content-type: application/json" -d '{}' # → { "footage_id", … } ``` A part that answers "already exists" was sent before — count it as done. `GET $BASE/$UPLOAD?t=$T` says which parts are there, so an interrupted upload carries on where it stopped. Part URLs last two hours: ask for them as you go. ## The edit document An edit document is JSON: `version` (always 1), `duration_s` (the video's length in seconds), `media` (the files it uses, by a key you choose), `html`, and optionally `css` and `script`. ### A complete example A 15-second 9:16 reel: a title card that rises in, five seconds of beach footage, seven and a half seconds of a talking clip with its own sound and captions from its transcript, and music under all of it. Swap the ids for the cut's own footage ids (`get_cut`) and the `asset_id` of a track the customer made or owns. ```json { "version": 1, "duration_s": 15, "media": { "beach": { "footage": "0f3b6d2a-5c1e-4a8b-9d7f-2e6c4b1a9f30" }, "talk": { "footage": "7a2c9e41-3b8d-4f6a-a1c5-9e0d2b7f4c18" }, "music": { "asset": "c4e81b07-9d2a-4c3f-8e6b-1a5d7f9c2e64" } }, "html": "

Goa, day one

\n\n\n
\n", "css": "video { position: absolute; inset: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; }\n.card { position: absolute; inset: 0; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; background: #10131a; }\n.card h1 { margin: 0 80px; font-family: 'Montserrat'; font-weight: 900; font-size: 120px; line-height: 1.05; color: #fff; text-align: center; animation: rise 0.8s ease-out both; }\n@keyframes rise { from { opacity: 0; transform: translateY(60px); } to { opacity: 1; transform: none; } }\n.subs { font-family: 'Montserrat'; --cut-cap-color: #ffffff; }" } ``` ### The frame `html` is what is inside the frame. The frame itself — its size (the cut's canvas), its length (`duration_s`), its frame rate (30) — is written by Ochra; do not write one. A frame of your own is replaced (its id, class and style are kept, so your CSS still applies), and `duration_s` is the only length that counts. ### Timing - An element with `data-start` (seconds) is shown from then for `data-duration` seconds, and hidden outside that window. A `
` needs both; a picture without `data-duration` shows for 3 seconds. - `data-start` may also name another element: `"title"` means when it ends, `"title + 0.5"` half a second after. A captions block needs plain numbers. - Stack later elements on top of earlier ones with CSS (`position: absolute`, `z-index`). ### Media - Each key in `media` is `{ "footage": "" }` (footage of this cut — `get_cut` lists the ids) or `{ "asset": "" }` (a file in the customer's own library: a generated shot, music or speech, or an upload). Anything else is refused as not found. - Use a key as `src="media:"` on `