# Remotion Rule: Transcribe Captions

> Remotion skill rule: Transcribing audio to generate captions in Remotion. Part of the official Remotion Agent Skill for programmatic video in React.

## Install

Save the content below to `.claude/skills/` or append to your `CLAUDE.md`:

## Quick Use

```bash
npx skills add remotion-dev/skills
```

This rule activates automatically when working with transcribe captions in a Remotion project.

---

## Intro

Transcribing audio to generate captions in Remotion. Part of the [Remotion AI Skill](https://tokrepo.com/en/workflows/57997ead-c8fa-409c-916f-28bbc0adc8d9) — the official Agent Skill for programmatic video creation in React.

**Best for**: Developers using Remotion for transcribe captions
**Works with**: Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Cursor

---

## Rule Content

# Transcribing audio

To transcribe audio to generate captions in Remotion, you can use the [`transcribe()`](https://www.remotion.dev/docs/install-whisper-cpp/transcribe) function from the [`@remotion/install-whisper-cpp`](https://www.remotion.dev/docs/install-whisper-cpp) package.

## Prerequisites

First, the @remotion/install-whisper-cpp package needs to be installed.
If it is not installed, use the following command:

```bash
npx remotion add @remotion/install-whisper-cpp
```

## Transcribing

Make a Node.js script to download Whisper.cpp and a model, and transcribe the audio.

```ts
import path from "path";
import {
  downloadWhisperModel,
  installWhisperCpp,
  transcribe,
  toCaptions,
} from "@remotion/install-whisper-cpp";
import fs from "fs";

const to = path.join(process.cwd(), "whisper.cpp");

await installWhisperCpp({
  to,
  version: "1.5.5",
});

await downloadWhisperModel({
  model: "medium.en",
  folder: to,
});

// Convert the audio to a 16KHz wav file first if needed:
// import {execSync} from 'child_process';
// execSync('ffmpeg -i /path/to/audio.mp4 -ar 16000 /path/to/audio.wav -y');

const whisperCppOutput = await transcribe({
  model: "medium.en",
  whisperPath: to,
  whisperCppVersion: "1.5.5",
  inputPath: "/path/to/audio123.wav",
  tokenLevelTimestamps: true,
});

// Optional: Apply our recommended postprocessing
const { captions } = toCaptions({
  whisperCppOutput,
});

// Write it to the public/ folder so it can be fetched from Remotion
fs.writeFileSync("captions123.json", JSON.stringify(captions, null, 2));
```

Transcribe each clip individually and create multiple JSON files.

See [Displaying captions](display-captions.md) for how to display the captions in Remotion.

---

## Source & Thanks

> Created by [Remotion](https://github.com/remotion-dev). Licensed under MIT.
> [remotion-dev/skills](https://github.com/remotion-dev/skills) — Rule: `transcribe-captions`

Part of the [Remotion AI Skill](https://tokrepo.com/en/workflows/57997ead-c8fa-409c-916f-28bbc0adc8d9) collection on TokRepo.

---
Source: https://tokrepo.com/en/workflows/957e8918-a9ce-4b3e-97e1-6493d6ed75db
Author: Skill Factory