claude code as your instagram video editor
drop your photos and a voice take on the left, say what you want, watch the reel appear on the right. runs on your own laptop, free per video.
setup guide
- open code.visualstudio.com
- press the big blue download button
- open the file it downloads and install it
- open VS Code and leave it open
what is this?
a free editor from Microsoft. you will not write code in it. it is just the window everything else happens inside.
the one part you will use is the terminal: the menu is Terminal, then New Terminal, and a black panel opens at the bottom. that is where the two commands on this page get typed.
on a Mac, drag Visual Studio Code into Applications first, then open it from there.
- open claude.ai and make an account
- pick Pro, $20 a month. already have a free account? upgrade at claude.ai/settings/billing
do i really have to pay?
yes, this is the one part that costs money. the free plan does not include Claude Code at all.
Pro runs everything on this page. it is the smallest bucket of usage, so a very long editing day can ask you to wait a few hours. for a few reels a week that will not happen. Max ($100 a month) is for people editing every day, and it is worth moving up only when Pro actually stops you.
- in VS Code, open Terminal, then New Terminal
- paste this line and press Enter
on Windows: switch the terminal to PowerShell first, then paste irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex instead.
- quit VS Code and open it again
- in a new terminal, type
claudeand press Enter - pick Claude account with subscription, sign in in the browser, approve it
something went wrong
command not found: claude after the install means you did not quit and reopen VS Code. a terminal that was already open cannot see something installed after it started. this is the single most common snag on this page.
no browser opened? press c in the terminal to copy the sign-in link and paste it into your browser yourself. shown a code instead of being sent back? copy it into the terminal where it asks.
there is also a Claude Code extension for VS Code, by Anthropic, and it is lovely. install it if you like, but it is not a substitute for the line above: it deliberately does not give you the claude command, and the command is what the studio runs.
this is the whole setup. paste this into Claude Code and let it work.
- it will ask permission a few times. say yes
- when it hands you a link, open it. that is the studio
what is it actually doing?
downloading Reel Studio from github.com/melnikoff-oleg/reel-studio, installing the three free tools it needs (Node, ffmpeg, Python), and starting it on your machine at http://localhost:4321. it takes a few minutes the first time.
leave that terminal alone once it is running. it looks stuck; it is not, that is what running looks like. it is the engine, and closing it stops the studio.
if anything at all goes wrong here, say so in the same box. it can read its own error and fix it, which is the reason this page is five steps instead of nine.
pasting the address of this page at Claude Code works just as well. it will read it and do the same thing.
next time you want the studio, you do not repeat any of this. on a Mac, double-click start.command inside the folder.
- drag ten or fifteen photos onto the left panel
- record twenty seconds of yourself talking in voice memos and drop that in too
- type one sentence in the middle box and press Build
it plays on the right when it is done. then just say what to change: “make the first shot longer”, “captions bigger and yellow”, “something calmer under it”.
tips, and what to do if it misbehaves
the first video takes longer than every one after it, because it downloads its renderer once. a short reel is a few minutes; a long one with captions and music can be fifteen. the clock beside the editor is counting real work.
every cut is kept. the little row of versions under the picture is your history, and clicking one plays it.
when a video finally looks right, press Save this style and name the look. after that you can ask for it by name on completely different photos.
you can also paste a link on the left, a product page or an article, and it will read it and build from it.
no music? the music folder ships empty, because licensed tracks are not mine to hand out. drop your own .mp3 files in there. the studio can also go and find music, stock shots and voices for you, which needs one extra sign-in; ask Claude Code to set up the heygen command when you want it.
anything else: paste the error at Claude Code. it wrote the setup, it can read the error.