Free video styles for Claude Code

ReelStyles Free is a public GitHub repository with 7 video styles for Claude Code and other coding agents: Dark Keynote, Whiteboard explainer, Doodle film, Kinetic type, Stick-figure metaphor Short, Countdown guessing quiz and Pop comic panels. It is MIT licensed and installs with two /plugin commands. Your agent animates the film in code and renders an MP4 on your own computer.

What the free kit is

It is a set of plain files that your agent reads: a style guide, scene templates, render steps and a rubric the agent checks its own frames against. Claude Code writes each scene as HTML and canvas code, and HyperFrames renders it to MP4. A video model is never involved, so there is no per-clip fee. The repository is reelstyles/reelstyles-free and the licence is MIT, so you can use and change the kits for commercial work too.

Install in Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add reelstyles/reelstyles-free
/plugin install reelstyles-free@reelstyles-free

To update later, run /plugin marketplace update reelstyles-free.

Then tell Claude "set up ReelStyles". It runs the reelstyles-setup skill, checks what is installed, asks before it installs anything missing, and renders a 5 second test film.

Install in Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI or another agent

Clone the repository into your project or next to it:

git clone https://github.com/reelstyles/reelstyles-free

Agents that read AGENTS.md find the skill from there. Roo Code, Cline and GitHub Copilot work the same way. You can also copy skills/reelstyles/ into the folder where your agent looks for skills or rules. To update, run git pull.

What you need

• Node.js 22 or newer
• ffmpeg
• Chrome or Chromium (HyperFrames uses it to render)
• An AI agent on your own plan, for example Claude Code

The setup skill can install the first three if you say yes. A GPU is not needed. Long films render faster on a computer with more CPU cores.

The 7 free styles

• Dark Keynote: A software launch film on a dark navy stage with a fine grid and one mint accent. App windows snap into place on the beat and a giant number resolves out of scrambled characters.
• Whiteboard explainer: Marker drawings appear on a whiteboard one step at a time, like someone explaining at the board. Handy for simple how-it-works videos.
• Doodle film: A little story drawn with one pen and a few markers, with wobbly lines, colour that misses the outline and cream paper, set to music. The sample stars a round-headed kid, a cat and a falling spark.
• Kinetic type: The words are the whole show: giant letters slam in, stack up and swap places over a drifting colour background, and it ends on a logo reveal. Good for short explainers where the text carries the message.
• Stick-figure metaphor Short: White stick figures on black act out six quick visual metaphors with small labels and one accent colour, then end on a question that flips the idea.
• Countdown guessing quiz: A silhouette of a shape, flag or animal appears, a 3-second ring counts down and the answer pops in. Each round gets harder, from easy to impossible.
• Pop comic panels: A printed comic page comes alive with Ben-Day dots, speed lines and sound-effect bursts while the camera dives from one panel into the next.

Each name links to a page with an example film. One more style moves into the free kit every Monday, so this list grows.

An example prompt

Read skills/reelstyles/SKILL.md, then make me a 30 s video
about how espresso machines work in the whiteboard style.
Show me the scene plan first.

Replace the topic and the style with any style id from skills/reelstyles/STYLES.md.

How the paid tiers differ

Free has 7 styles. Full has every style, 126 today, plus every style added later, from $49. You pay once. The free kit tells your agent which styles it lacks and links to the paid kit. The pricing page has the current price and the 14 day refund.

Questions