AI Coding
The Claude Code prompt that makes a whole explainer video
No video editor, no stock footage, no voice actor. You give Claude Code a product page and a style, tell it you're leaving the room, and come back to a narrated animation that plays in your browser. It's all one prompt, and it went round r/ClaudeAI because it works.
Claude Code · Opus 5.5 · one prompt · about $10 of API spend
The output
Watch this before you read anything else
Someone in the thread took the original prompt, pointed it at their own product, Blueprintr, and asked for a diagram-drawn story in place of a collage. This is what came back. Everything in it was written, voiced, drawn and timed by the agent: script, narration, visuals, pacing.
Where this came from
The prompt started in a r/ClaudeAI post titled "Jaw literally dropped, I ran the prompt from the…". The original poster ran it on Friendr.nl, an event app, and posted the result. Their video and the rest of the thread are worth a look, including the other remixes in the comments.
Read the Reddit thread ↗Why it works when "make me a video" doesn't
Ask a chat model for a video and you get a script and a polite note that it can't render video. The prompt gets around that without any tricks. It asks for a JavaScript animation, and that's a web page. A web page is code, and Claude Code writes code. Canvas and SVG do the drawing, a text-to-speech model does the voice, and the browser plays it back.
The rest of the prompt is a brief a decent producer would recognise: the audience, what they should take away, what they should do next, a look, a length, a budget. Then it takes away the check-ins. Knowing nobody is waiting on it, the model keeps going. It renders a scene, checks it, fixes the timing and moves on to the next one. It doesn't stop after the first draft to ask what you think.
None of the lines are magic. Together they give it a medium it can build in, facts to work from, a goal, and permission to keep going.
The two prompts, word for word
Typos left in. The original went viral. The remix produced the video above, and it adds two things worth keeping: a story arc, and an instruction to keep the output out of the live site.
1. The original (Friendr.nl)
Collage style, grounded in the product FAQ, ends on a call to action.
Create a pure javascript animation. 30s-60s whimsical hand drawn collage style with appropriate audio on Friendr.nl. Entire video should be as high of a production value as possible. Please spend your time on this, it's very important. People should understand what Friendr.nl is for and after seeing the video will want to create an event to try it out. Read the FAQ first. Use high quality text-to-speech model for generation. You can find open router API key in .env file You can use any tools you can find access to and resources on the internet. You create the script, the assets, the animation, concept, everything. I have to go away from my computer so please work autonomously until done. Quality is paramount. Production value should be on professional level. One more thing: max OpenRouter spend is $10
2. The remix (Blueprintr)
Diagram style, a struggle-to-rescue story, every feature covered, output kept in a gitignored folder. This one made the video above.
Create a pure javascript animation. 45-60s whimsical diagram drawn style in the vellum editor with appropriate audio on the topic of what is blueprintr, it should cover all the features and also tell a story of somebodies struggle and how blueprintr saved the day. Entire video should be as high of a production value as possible. Please spend your time on this, it's very important. Use high quality text-to-speech model for generation. You can find open router API key in .env file You can use any tools you can find access to and resources on the internet. You create the script, the assets, the animation, concept, everything. Don't put it anywhere on the site yet, create a new directory in root and add it to .gitignore - but make sure i can open it locally in firefox. I have to go away from my computer so please work autonomously until done. Quality is paramount. Production value should be on professional level. One more thing: max OpenRouter spend is $10
What each line is doing
Worth knowing before you change anything. Most of the lines look optional, and most of them aren't.
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"Create a pure javascript animation" Picks a medium the model can actually build
Claude Code cannot open After Effects. It can write HTML, canvas, SVG and Web Audio all day. Asking for a JavaScript animation turns "make a video" into a coding task, which is the one thing an agent in a terminal is built for. You get a page that plays in a browser instead of an MP4, and that trade is the whole trick.
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"30s–60s whimsical hand drawn collage style" Sets length and a look
A duration bounds the script. A named style gives every later decision something to agree with: fonts, colours, how things move on and off screen. "Hand drawn collage" also forgives a lot. Wobbly lines and paper textures hide the fact that nobody animated this by hand.
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"Read the FAQ first" Grounds the script in the real product
Without it you get a generic startup video about "connecting people". With it, the voiceover repeats things the product actually does, in words the product already uses. If your site has no FAQ, point it at whatever page explains the product best.
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"People should understand what it is for and… want to create an event" Gives the video a job
This is a brief, not a description. The model now knows the viewer, the takeaway and the call to action, which is more than most human-written video briefs manage.
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"Use high quality text-to-speech… open router API key in .env" Hands over a voice and a key to pay for it
The agent writes the script, then calls a TTS model to voice it. Pointing at the .env file means you never paste the key into the chat. If the provider you name cannot reach a TTS model, a good run says so and looks for another route. Check what it chose afterwards.
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"You create the script, the assets, the animation, concept, everything" Removes the checkpoints
By default an agent stops to ask whether you like the concept. This line tells it you do not want to be asked. Paired with the next line, it is permission to make every creative call itself.
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"I have to go away… work autonomously until done" Switches it into long-run mode
Models pace themselves to the person they think is watching. Tell it nobody is and it will render, look, fix, and render again instead of handing back a first draft with a list of suggestions.
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"Max OpenRouter spend is $10" A budget, stated in words
The model will try to respect it. It cannot enforce it. Set a credit limit on the key itself as well, so an overeager retry loop hits a wall instead of your card.
Your turn
Build the prompt for your product
This keeps the structure of both prompts and fills in your details. The prompt updates as you type.
Create a pure javascript animation. 45-60s whimsical diagram drawn style in the vellum editor with appropriate audio on the topic of what is blueprintr, it should cover all the features and also tell a story of somebodies struggle and how blueprintr saved the day. Entire video should be as high of a production value as possible. Please spend your time on this, it's very important. Use high quality text-to-speech model for generation. You can find open router API key in .env file You can use any tools you can find access to and resources on the internet. You create the script, the assets, the animation, concept, everything. Don't put it anywhere on the site yet, create a new directory in root and add it to .gitignore - but make sure i can open it locally in firefox. I have to go away from my computer so please work autonomously until done. Quality is paramount. Production value should be on professional level. One more thing: max OpenRouter spend is $10
Before you walk away
Five minutes of setup that saves the run
Put the key in .env, and .env in .gitignore
The prompt relies on the agent finding the key there. Check that git ignores the file before the agent starts creating files next to it. An API key in a public repo gets found fast.
Cap the key, not just the prompt
Create a separate key for this run with its own spending limit. "Max spend is $10" is a request. A key limit is a rule.
Give it an output folder of its own
The remix asks for a new root folder, added to .gitignore, that opens straight from disk. Steal that. It keeps a few hundred megabytes of audio and experiments out of your repo, and "open it locally in Firefox" forces it to avoid anything that needs a dev server.
Decide how many permission prompts you can live with
"Work autonomously" means nothing if Claude Code stops every few minutes to ask before running a command. Run it in a sandbox, a container or a throwaway checkout where you are comfortable allowing more, and not in a repo with production credentials sitting around.
Point it at your best explainer page
An FAQ, a docs page, a pricing page with real feature names. Whatever you link is what the voiceover will sound like.
Questions
Do I need Opus 5.5 for this?
The run that got people talking used Claude Code with Opus 5.5, and this kind of task is where the bigger model earns its price: hours of unsupervised work, a lot of self-review, and taste calls on timing and layout. A smaller model will follow the prompt. Expect a rougher result and more cases where it stops early and calls it done.
Is the output an actual video file?
No. You get an HTML page with JavaScript that plays the animation and audio in a browser. For a file to upload, screen-record it at full screen, or send a follow-up prompt asking for an export script that captures frames with a headless browser and muxes them with the voiceover using ffmpeg.
Why OpenRouter?
Because that is the key the original poster had. There is nothing special about it. Swap in whichever provider you have a key for and name it in the prompt. The line that matters is the one telling the agent where the key lives.
How long does a run take?
Long enough that the "I have to go away" line is doing real work. Plan on leaving it for a good while, and do not judge it on the first render you peek at mid-run.
Can I use this for a client or a product launch?
As a first draft or an internal explainer, yes. Before you publish, watch it with the sound on and check every claim the voiceover makes. It read your FAQ, but it also wrote marketing copy, and marketing copy drifts.
What about the music and sound effects?
"Appropriate audio" leaves it to the agent, which may generate tones in Web Audio or go looking for assets online. If it pulls anything from the internet, check the licence before the video goes anywhere public.
Made something with it?
We build small tools and the automation behind them. If you've taken this prompt somewhere interesting, or want help pointing an agent at your own product, tell us.
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