How to Turn a Long Video Into Shorts With Codex and OpusClip

To turn a long video into shorts with Codex, give the agent an approved public source URL, discover the current OpusClip Actions through Aident Loadout, inspect the live project and clip contracts, preflight the exact curation request, and create one project only after reviewing its scope. When processing finishes, review the source transcript and every candidate clip before exporting or publishing anything.

This workflow separates four decisions that are easy to blur together: what footage may be processed, how OpusClip should curate it, which returned clips meet your acceptance rules, and whether any approved clip may leave the review queue.

Define the Short-Video Contract First

Do not start with "make this viral." Start with a deliverable a reviewer can accept or reject.

The number of clips is a review target, not a promise that the source contains that many strong moments. Reject weak or misleading excerpts instead of filling a quota.

Set Up Aident Loadout

Give Codex the canonical setup instruction exactly as written:

Follow https://aident.ai/SETUP.md

Then verify the installed public CLI and Vault state:

aident account auth status
aident vault vault --action status

Search by job and use staging discovery when the installed CLI supports it:

aident capabilities search \
  --targetEnv staging \
  --queries '["create an OpusClip project from a long video URL","list exportable clips for an OpusClip project","get the source transcript for an OpusClip project"]' \
  --types '["action"]'

Copy the exact current Action names from the results. Do not copy an old internal identifier from a prior run or call the provider directly to avoid the integration boundary.

Step 1: Inspect the Current OpusClip Contracts

Inspect the project, clip-listing, and transcript Actions before you prepare a payload. On August 11, 2026, the live Aident catalog exposed these jobs:

• create a clipping project from a source video URL, get a project, or update its visibility;

• list exportable clips by project or collection; and

• get the source-video transcript for a project.

The project Action required an actionName and videoUrl for creation. It also accepted curation, import, brand-template, and completion-notification preferences. The clip Action supported a project query with a project ID and bounded page size. The transcript Action required a project ID.

Treat those observations as dated. Inspect the schemas again before every new workflow because fields, risk metadata, and provider behavior can change.

Step 2: Check the Source Before Uploading It

Use a URL that OpusClip can retrieve and that your team is allowed to process. The current OpusClip create-project documentation lists public sources including YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive, Zoom, Loom, Dropbox, Riverside, and public MP4 storage links.

Before submission, record:

{
  "sourceOwner": "content-team",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<approved-video>",
  "rightsConfirmed": true,
  "sourceRevision": "webinar-final-2026-08-11",
  "allowedRangeSeconds": [120, 1800],
  "targetClipSeconds": [30, 90],
  "maxCandidateClips": 5,
  "publicationRequiresApproval": true
}

Do not submit a private customer call, licensed footage, unreleased recording, or personal data merely because a URL is technically reachable. Source permission is part of the workflow contract.

Step 3: Build a Narrow Curation Request

Start with the smallest useful slice of the recording. OpusClip's current create-project documentation supports a curation range, clip-duration bands, topic keywords, genre, source language, brand template, and completion actions.

For a talking-head webinar, a conservative request looks like this:

{
  "actionName": "create_clip_project",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<approved-video>",
  "curationPref": {
    "range": {
      "startSec": 120,
      "endSec": 1800
    },
    "clipDurations": [[30, 90]],
    "topicKeywords": ["agent integrations", "approval gates"],
    "genre": "Auto",
    "skipCurate": false
  },
  "importPref": {
    "sourceLang": "en"
  }
}

When using a range, send both startSec and endSec, and make the start smaller than the end. OpusClip says to omit range entirely when processing the whole source instead of sending an empty range object.

Use topic keywords to prioritize relevant moments, not to force the system to invent statements the speaker never made. Keep the original source available for context review.

Step 4: Preflight Without Creating a Project

Preflight the exact payload before it reaches OpusClip:

aident capabilities preflight \
  --name "<exact current OpusClip project Action>" \
  --input '{"actionName":"create_clip_project","videoUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<approved-video>","curationPref":{"range":{"startSec":120,"endSec":1800},"clipDurations":[[30,90]],"topicKeywords":["agent integrations","approval gates"],"genre":"Auto","skipCurate":false},"importPref":{"sourceLang":"en"}}'

Confirm that the input is valid, the source and range are correct, the Action still represents a write, and the estimate fits the run's policy. A minimal project payload validated and preflighted at zero Aident credits on August 11, 2026. That does not make execution consequence-free: the provider documents plan limits and video-processing credits, and creating a project sends the source to an external service.

Stop if the estimate is unavailable, the payload changed after review, the source duration exceeds the approved ceiling, or the integration is not ready. Preflight is validation, not authorization to execute.

Step 5: Create One Project and Wait for Its Receipt

Execute only the payload that passed preflight and only after the reviewer approves the source, range, and external write. Require the result to include the new project ID and current status.

Do not submit again because processing is slow. Use the same project Action with its read operation to check the returned ID:

{
  "actionName": "get_clip_project",
  "projectId": "<project ID from the creation receipt>"
}

Poll slowly and stop at a bounded deadline. OpusClip also documents completion actions for email or webhooks. For production automation, prefer a verified callback or durable job state over an unbounded polling loop.

This article did not create a project. The schema inspection and zero-credit Aident preflight are reproducible, but a human still needs to approve the exact external write and source footage.

Step 6: Review the Transcript Before the Clips

When the project finishes, fetch the source transcript by project ID. The current OpusClip transcript documentation says the result includes paragraph timing, text, optional speaker data, and per-word timing. Range-limited projects return the billed curation range rather than unrelated parts of the source.

Use the transcript to build a source map:

Reject a clip when the excerpt removes a qualification, attributes a claim to the wrong speaker, begins mid-thought, or changes the apparent meaning. A polished caption does not repair missing context.

Step 7: List and Score the Candidate Clips

Use the read-only clip Action with the project ID and a small page size:

{
  "q": "findByProjectId",
  "projectId": "<completed project ID>",
  "pageNum": 1,
  "pageSize": 5
}

Review every candidate against one rubric:

Save only reviewed export URLs or files. Preview URLs can expire or differ from a final HD export, so verify the actual delivered asset before handoff.

Keep Publishing as a Separate Approval

Creating clips and posting clips are different actions. Do not chain social publishing into the first run.

For each approved asset, prepare a manifest with the target account, platform, caption, scheduled time, source project, reviewer, and rollback plan. Show that manifest to a human before any public post. A successful clip-generation receipt does not authorize Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, or X publication.

For the broader credential boundary, read How to Give AI Agents API Access Without Exposing Keys. For spend and retry controls around media jobs, use AI Agent Cost Guardrails. For another reviewed video workflow, see How to Generate AI Video With Codex and Fal.

Common Failure Modes

The project was submitted twice

Reuse the first project ID and check its status. A timeout or slow render is not evidence that the first write failed. Record a durable source-revision-to-project mapping before retrying.

The best-scoring clip is misleading

Compare it with the source transcript and surrounding footage. Ranking predicts usefulness; it does not approve context, claims, or rights.

The captions are wrong

Correct the caption or editing script through a reviewed revision when the current contract supports it. Do not publish with a known name, number, or product-term error.

The source URL cannot be imported

Check permissions, expiry, provider support, and whether the URL points to the media rather than a private landing page. Do not make a private file public merely to unblock an automation.

Codex returns clip links but no project record

Require the project ID, source revision, selected clip IDs, source timestamps, and Action receipt. A group of links without traceability is not a reusable workflow.

Reusable Codex Prompt

Follow https://aident.ai/SETUP.md

Turn one approved long video into reviewed short-video candidates with OpusClip.

1. Verify Aident authentication and Vault status.
2. Discover the current OpusClip project, clip-listing, and transcript Actions in staging.
3. Inspect their schemas, risk, and pricing. Do not execute yet.
4. Validate my source-rights manifest, time range, clip-duration band, topic keywords, language, and candidate limit.
5. Preflight the exact create-project payload and show me the source, range, side effect, and estimate.
6. Wait for my approval before creating one project.
7. Poll only the returned project ID with a bounded deadline.
8. When ready, fetch the source transcript and at most five candidate clips.
9. Score each clip for context, caption accuracy, boundaries, layout, audio, brand, rights, and traceability.
10. Save a review manifest. Do not publish, schedule, or share any clip

Success is not "OpusClip returned videos." Success is one traceable project, a bounded set of clips checked against the source, and a publication queue that remains closed until a reviewer approves each asset.

Use Aident Loadout to discover and preflight the current OpusClip workflow before creating one project.

Sources

• OpusClip API overview

• Create a new OpusClip project

• Get OpusClip project clips

• Get a source-video transcript

• OpusClip webhooks

• OpusClip agent setup

• Live Aident Loadout catalog and preflight, inspected August 11, 2026