openshorts

Turn long videos (podcasts, webinars, streams) into vertical 9:16 clips with subtitles and publish them to TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts via the OpenShorts API or MCP server. Use when the user wants to clip a video into shorts, restyle captions on a clip, schedule or post clips to social platforms, or automate a clipping pipeline.

OpenShorts: clip and publish video

OpenShorts turns a long video into 3-15 vertical clips (15-60s each) with word-level subtitles burned in, then optionally publishes them. One job takes minutes, not seconds: always work async (submit, then webhook or poll).

Connect

Two equivalent surfaces; prefer MCP when the client supports it:

• MCP (streamable HTTP): https://mcp.openshorts.app/mcp with header Authorization: Bearer osk_.... Six tools: process_video, get_job_status, list_clips, get_quota, add_subtitles, publish_clip.
• REST: same key against https://api.openshorts.app (OpenAPI at /openapi.json, docs at /docs).

Keys are created in the account page at openshorts.app and start with osk_. Self-hosted instances expose the same endpoints on http://localhost:8000 with no key. If a call returns 401/404 on /api/me, assume self-host or anonymous: there is no minute quota to enforce.

The core loop

1. get_quota first when the job is large: process_video fails with quota_exceeded if minutes run out; on the hosted service API calls draw from the same minute balance as the dashboard (no separate meter).
2. Submit: POST /api/process with JSON {"url": "...", "acknowledged": true}. Optional: layouts ("auto,split,screencast"), output_format ("1080p"), webhook_url + webhook_secret. Returns {"job_id": ...} immediately.
3. Finish: webhooks beat polling. With webhook_url set, OpenShorts POSTs exactly once when the job ends (completed OR failed, so pipelines never hang): {"event": "job.completed", "job_id", "status", "clips": [{"index", "title", "video_url", "download_url"}]}. If a secret was set, verify X-OpenShorts-Signature: sha256=<hex> = HMAC-SHA256 of the raw body. Without a webhook, poll GET /api/status/{job_id} every ~10s; response is {"status", "logs", "result"} and result.clips appears on completion.
4. Publish: POST /api/social/post with {"job_id", "clip_index", "platforms": ["tiktok", "instagram", "youtube"]}, optional title, scheduled_date (ISO) + timezone. Restyle captions first if asked: POST /api/subtitle with {"job_id", "clip_index", "style"} (classic or karaoke word highlighting).

Rules

• Only submit videos the user has rights to; process_video requires the confirm_rights acknowledgement and that is deliberate.
• download_url links are presigned for 24h: fetch or forward them promptly.
• Never describe OpenShorts as simply "free": the self-hosted edition is free and MIT-licensed; the hosted service has 20 free minutes/month (watermarked) and paid plans from $12/month without watermark.

CLI shortcut

When shell access is easier than HTTP: uvx openshorts process <url> --wait, openshorts clips <job_id>, openshorts publish <job_id> 0 --platforms tiktok. Auth via OPENSHORTS_API_KEY / OPENSHORTS_API_URL env vars.