Remotion Create

These are instructions for making a new Remotion project and composition.
If this is not the next task, see Remotion Best Practices

Scaffold a project

If a project already exists, skip this. Ensure Node.js and Git is installed, and the current folder is appropriate for starting a new project.

Inspect the current folder, including hidden files, before choosing where to scaffold.

Empty folder

If it is empty, or contains only disposable operating-system metadata such as .DS_Store, create the project directly in the current folder. Remove only those disposable metadata files first, since create-video rejects non-empty folders. Do not treat all hidden files as disposable: files such as .env and directories such as .git are meaningful contents.

Scaffold in existing folder:

npx create-video@latest --yes --blank --no-tailwind .
npm i

Non-empty folder

If the current folder contains meaningful contents and no project already exists, scaffold into a new subfolder. Replace my-video with a suitable project name.

npx create-video@latest --yes --blank --no-tailwind my-video
cd my-video
npm i

Designing a video

Keep the scaffold and add React Markup. Follow Remotion React Markup Best Practices and Video Layout Rules (opens in a new tab) for video-first layout and text sizing guidance.

Is this a multi-scene video?

If this is a video with multiple subsequence videos, follow guidance at Multi-scene videos.

Interactivity Best Practices

By structuring the React Markup following Remotion Interactivity Best Practices, you allow the user to make edits in the Studio which write back to code.

TailwindCSS

If Tailwind is requested, see tailwind.md (opens in a new tab) for using TailwindCSS in Remotion.

Open the preview

Start the preview server after building the composition:

npx remotion studio --no-open

This will start a long-running process and print the server URL for the preview.
If the server is already started, it will print the URL. If an in-harness browser is available, open it there. You can visit a specific composition by navigating to /[composition-id], for example http://localhost:3000/MapAnimation.

Render the video

Only render if the user explicitly asks for it.

npx remotion render

For more options, see Rendering.

Follow-up

The video creation process has finished. For follow-up prompts, use Remotion Best Practices