Manim Skill

Create videos like you write code, with your coding agent

Works with Claude Code and Codex. Your coding agent autonomously generates 3Blue1Brown-style videos following a structured workflow: Narration → TTS → Code → Render → Mux → View. Voiceover narration and time-synced subtitles are on by default.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/Yusuke710/manim-skill
cd manim-skill

# System libraries (macOS)
brew install cairo pkg-config ffmpeg
brew install --cask mactex-no-gui   # LaTeX — required for Tex/MathTex text rendering

# Python packages — Manim + local Kokoro voiceover(no API key needed), from pyproject.toml
uv sync

# Register the skill (symlink it into each agent's skills dir)
ln -s "$PWD/skills/manim-skill" ~/.claude/skills/manim-skill   # Claude Code
ln -s "$PWD/skills/manim-skill" ~/.codex/skills/manim-skill    # Codex
# Alternatively, ask your coding agent to add this skill

How it works

Describe the video to your coding agent. It chooses the scene structure directly in the animation code, without creating a separate plan document.

1. Generate - The agent writes spoken lines to narration.txt, generates local Kokoro TTS, writes Manim code using measured narration timing, checks subtitles, renders, and muxes until video.mp4 exists. Silent videos skip narration and go straight to code and rendering.

2. Iterate - Claude opens a video viewer in your browser. Add feedback, copy it into Claude Code, and Claude refines the video based on your notes. The same workflow works with Codex.

   Watch the video and pause at a moment you want to discuss. Click Capture or press t to add the current timestamp and scene name to Notes. Describe what to fix in that frame, request a change, or ask a question—for example, "These labels overlap; move them apart" or "Why does this token attend most strongly to cup?" Repeat for any other moments.

   Click Copy, paste the notes into Claude Code (or Codex), and send them. The agent can inspect the referenced frames, answer your questions, and update the affected scenes. Reload the viewer to watch the revised video and repeat as needed.

Local voiceover with Kokoro TTS

Narration uses Kokoro TTS, an open-weight text-to-speech model that runs locally without an API key. uv sync installs the Python dependencies.

Where files go

Every video is a flat session folder under one consistent home — never in your working directory:

~/.manim-skill//    # narration.txt, script.py, video.mp4, media/, ...

Override the home with MANIM_SKILL_HOME. This means you can point the skill at your own codebase ("visualize this algorithm") without it leaving artifacts behind — it reads your files in place and writes only into the session folder.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.