Clipper README

This is a copy of the Clipper README. The code lives in a private repository while Clipper is in testing, so the install steps will work once it is public. Request early access to try it sooner.

Clipper by ampMultimedia: find your next great clip. Music, spoken word, made shareable.

Turn a song, a talk or a video into short vertical clips, ready for TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

Clipper listens to what you made, suggests the best moments, and gives you a clip for each one: cropped for a phone, with captions, an end card and a post caption written for you. You choose which ones to keep. Then you can send them to your social accounts from the same page.

It is built for people who make things (musicians, podcasters, speakers, video makers) and would rather spend their time making than editing.

What you can do with it

Start from what you have. Upload a file, drop it in a folder, or paste a video link.
Get suggested clips. Clipper transcribes the audio and picks up to 20 self-contained moments. For songs it works from your lyrics and finds the hook. You never get a clip that starts mid-word.
Review in one place. Preview each clip, approve or reject it, edit the wording, or ask for more clips from parts that were skipped.
Get captions that look right. Words are burned into the video in time with the speech or the singing. For songs, the captions use the exact lyrics you typed.
Get posts written for you. Each approved clip can get a caption and hashtags, which you can edit. Text you wrote yourself is never overwritten.
Finish with an end card. A short closing card points viewers to your song, site or link.
Publish where you are. Connect your accounts through Postiz (free and open source) to send clips as drafts, scheduled posts or right away, and see how they are doing on the Analytics page.
Or just download. Every approved clip can be downloaded as a bundle: the video, the post text, a cover image and the details.

How it works

Add a video or song, with a few details (for a song: artist, title, lyrics and a link).
Clipper suggests clips. It transcribes on your own machine, then asks an AI model to choose the moments.
You decide. Approve the good ones, tweak the rest.
Render and share. Vertical video with captions and an end card, plus post text. Download it or send it on.

Your content stays yours

Your files, clips and accounts live on your own server, not on a service run by someone else.
Speech is turned into text locally with faster-whisper.
The only thing sent to an AI provider is the text of the transcript, to the provider you choose (OpenAI, Google Gemini or Anthropic). Your video and audio never leave your server.
Accounts are by invitation only. People you invite get their own login, and each person connects their own social accounts.
Only use media you own or have permission to clip.

Get it running

You need a Linux computer or NAS with Python 3.11 or newer and ffmpeg. For clips from video links you also want Node 20+.

git clone https://github.com/earthmonkey419/clipper.git
cd clipper
./setup.sh                                  # makes a private Python environment and installs everything
./venv/bin/clipper create-user YOUR_NAME    # the first account becomes the admin

Choose where Clipper keeps its data, then start the website and the worker (the part that does the heavy lifting) in two terminals:

export CLIPPER_ROOT=$HOME/clipper-data

./venv/bin/python -m clipper.web            # terminal 1: the website, http://localhost:5050
./venv/bin/clipper worker                   # terminal 2: transcribes, picks and renders clips

Open http://localhost:5050 and log in. For a server that stays on, use PM2 instead (pm2 start ecosystem.config.js && pm2 save); the full steps are in How Clipper works.

Last, give Clipper an AI key so it can choose the clips. Put one line in $CLIPPER_ROOT/clipper.env, for example OPENAI_API_KEY=..., or CLIPPER_LLM_PROVIDER=gemini with GEMINI_API_KEY=..., or CLIPPER_LLM_PROVIDER=anthropic with ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=.... Then restart the worker. Everything is explained in .env.example.

Learn more

How Clipper works	Every feature in detail, music mode, video links, the command line, and how the code is organised.
Running Clipper for other people	Invitations and accounts, settings, Postiz keys, and everyday commands.
In the app	The Help page has a Quick start checklist and answers to common questions.

Status

Clipper is young and moving fast. It is used every day by its author, and it is being shaped into something other creators can run for themselves. Questions and ideas are welcome.

Legal

Clipper is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License v3. You can run it, study it and change it. If you offer a modified Clipper to other people over a network, you must share your changes under the same license. Report security problems as described in SECURITY.md. Copyright © 2026 Verbena Projects LLC. Clipper is made by ampMultimedia, a Verbena Projects company, and is part of the Verbena Projects family of tools for makers. Privacy policy, terms and data-deletion instructions are built into the app at /privacy, /terms and /data-deletion.