I Let Claude Opus 5.5 Edit My YouTube Shorts

My raw clip was 95 seconds long, and most of it was me starting the first line five times. I never opened an editing app. Claude cut it down to 53 seconds, wrote the captions word by word and put music under my voice.

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That's exactly how I record. I make way too many mistakes, and it takes me way too much time. So I made a skill for Claude Code that does the whole edit for me.

It's called Claude Shorts, and it's free. Here's how to set it up and edit your first Short.

What you need

• Claude Code. I use it in the Claude desktop app.
• A raw vertical clip you want edited, straight off your phone.
• A Mac, Windows or Linux computer. No API keys, and nothing gets uploaded. It all runs on your machine.

Step 1: Install it with one prompt

Go to the Claude Shorts page on GitHub and scroll down to Install with one prompt. Copy it, paste it into Claude Code and hit enter:

Install the claude-shorts skill for me:
1. Clone https://github.com/Ansub/claude-shorts into ~/.claude/skills/claude-shorts
   (if it's already there, git pull instead). Install Git for my OS first if missing.
2. Read its README.md and SKILL.md so you know what it does.
3. Detect my OS: run setup.ps1 in native PowerShell on Windows (with -ExecutionPolicy Bypass),
   or `bash ~/.claude/skills/claude-shorts/setup.sh` on macOS/Linux. Install prerequisites for me;
   no WSL or manual Homebrew setup. The setup downloads a 3 GB speech model, so let it finish.
4. Refresh PATH and run scripts/check_setup.py with the private venv Python (Scripts/python.exe on
   Windows, bin/python elsewhere). Follow the OS commands in SKILL.md.
5. Tell me in a few lines what got installed, whether I need to restart Claude Code to see /claude-shorts,
   and the exact prompt to edit my first Short.

It downloads a few things. One of them is a Whisper speech model, and that's about 3 GB, which is a bit heavy. Depending on your internet speed it can take a while, so be patient. You only do this once.

Step 2: Point it at your clip

Put your clip somewhere easy to find. I put mine on my desktop. Then type the slash command in Claude Code:

/claude-shorts edit the newest clip in ~/Downloads

Change the folder to wherever your clip is. Claude tells you the setup is done, which font it will use, and where the output will go. I told it to save the output in my desktop folder. Then it found my clip by itself and started working.

What Claude does next

Claude walks you through every step and asks before it moves on.

• It transcribes the clip. It uses Whisper to work out what I said and where I paused, so it knows exactly where to cut.
• It asks about unclear words. Whisper heard "croc-bot" three times. I told it I meant ClaudeBot. For everything else I said I'm leaning on your judgment, because Opus 5.5 does an amazing job and I don't need to handle it a lot.
• It shows you a cut plan. It removes the dead air, false starts, retakes and filler, and only cuts at silent points. It asks if it should go ahead. I said yes.
• It adds captions. They show word by word, on top of your head, with spelling and grammar fixed. It works out the placement for you. It then checks the captions and asks if they look right.
• It asks about overlays. If you have a screenshot or an image to show, it adds it on screen at the right word. I didn't need one, so I said skip to music.
• It adds music. Give it a music file or a YouTube link. I pasted a link to a popular song and said I want this audio, no vocals. Claude downloaded it, pulled out the music and mixed it in under my voice.
• It exports, then picks a thumbnail and title. It gave me three thumbnail options. I liked the third one. Then it suggested a title based on what I actually say in the video.

The result

When it was done, there was a new folder on my desktop with the thumbnail and the finished video inside. The captions, the cuts and the music were all there. The title it suggested was exactly what the video was about. You can keep it or change it.

The skill also sets the loudness to -14 LUFS, which is what YouTube, Instagram and TikTok expect. The GitHub page says a 1-minute clip takes about 2 minutes to process on an Apple Silicon Mac.

Things to know

• It's made for vertical talking-head clips. If you want around 10 Shorts cut from one long video instead, use long-to-shorts.
• Windows and Linux PCs without a GPU take longer, because the transcription runs on the CPU.
• Be careful with music from YouTube. Copyrighted songs can get your Short claimed or muted. Use royalty-free tracks for anything you post.
• Fix names it keeps getting wrong. Add them to ~/.config/claude-shorts/glossary.txt in this format: Correct = wrong, wrong.
• Want your own font? The captions use Inter and Great Vibes. Tell Claude the font name when it asks, or drop a .ttf file in ~/.config/claude-shorts/fonts/.

It already saves me so much time. Grab it from GitHub and try it on your next clip.