Studio: the agentic-video carve-out

Studio: the agentic-video carve-out

A niche product on the NodeTool platform: agentic video creation and editing for absolute beginners. One shell, two creation paths (storyboard and script), one finishing surface (the timeline editor), a curated model list, and a credits display instead of provider pricing. Everything below the shell is reused NodeTool.

Status: prototype. The shell ships inside the main web app at /studio; carving it into a standalone deployable is a later step (see “From prototype to product”).

What the user sees

  • /studio — home. Two cards: Start with a storyboard (describe an idea; the director agent breaks it into shots, renders stills, animates clips) and Start with a script (write or generate lines, cast voices, voice them). Below: recent projects across all three document types. The header always shows the credit balance.
  • /studio/storyboard/:id — the storyboard editor (board + agent panel + generation queue) without the workspace sidebar or tabs. Assemble navigates to the Studio timeline page.
  • /studio/script/:id — the script editor (document pane + cast / assistant dock). Create video in the header assembles the voiced takes into a timeline and navigates there.
  • /studio/timeline/:id — the full timeline editor, the one finishing surface. Preview, tracks, inspector, agent panel and export all come from the platform editor unchanged.

What is reused (all of it)

Product piece Platform code
Storyboard editing + agent web/src/components/storyboard/*, ui_storyboard_* tools, StoryboardStore, server sync
Script editing + voicing web/src/components/script/*, ui_script_* tools, ScriptStore, server sync
Timeline editing web/src/components/timeline/TimelineEditor, ui_timeline_* tools
Storyboard → timeline useAssembleTimeline → buildStoryboardTimeline (@nodetool-ai/timeline)
Script → timeline useAssembleScriptTimeline → buildScriptTimeline (@nodetool-ai/timeline)
Agent chat in every editor ChatView + per-document agent panels and bridges
Persistence tRPC storyboards / scripts / timeline routers, autosave hooks
Cost data prediction ledger (nodetool_predictions) via costs.dashboard
Headless QA nodetool timeline validate, storyboard/script render tools, the tool-loop evals

The Studio module itself is five small files in web/src/studio/ plus four routes in web/src/index.tsx. Nothing under web/src/components/ changed.

Curated models

web/src/studio/curatedModels.ts is the entire model policy: one language model (screenplay direction + assistants), one still model, one clip model. New Studio storyboards get them stamped on before the first generation, so beginners never meet a model picker; the platform pickers still exist inside the reused editors for users who dig, and validate_workflow’s provider/model check rejects any id the catalogs don’t know.

Changing the lineup is editing that file. If the product later needs per-plan lineups (e.g. faster models on the free tier), the same shape can move to a server-delivered config.

Credits

Prototype semantics, in web/src/studio/useStudioCredits.ts:

  • 1 credit = $0.01 of provider spend.
  • Balance = flat grant (1,000 credits) minus everything in the prediction ledger for the last 90 days, read from costs.dashboard.
  • Display-only: the chip in the Studio header. Nothing is blocked client-side.

The path to real enforcement already exists in the platform and is the next step after the prototype validates:

  1. Server gate. The application_budgets machinery (packages/models/src/application-budget.ts, enforced in unified-websocket-runner.ts with BUDGET_EXCEEDED) already does estimate → reserve → settle per invocation. Generalize the key from application_id to a user-scoped budget row and every generation path — storyboard stills/clips, voicing, timeline generate — is gated by the same code.
  2. Purchases. A credits tRPC router (alongside costsRouter) exposing balance + top-ups; grants become ledger rows instead of a client constant.
  3. Estimates before spend. @nodetool-ai/model-pricing (getModelUnitPrice) prices the curated models per unit, so shot cards and the voice-all button can show “≈ 3 credits” before the click.

From prototype to product

  • Standalone shell. The Studio routes live in the main bundle today. To ship a separate product surface: a studio.html Vite entry (the app-preview.html pattern) with only the Studio routes, or keep one bundle and gate by hostname/runtime config. The second is cheaper and keeps one deploy pipeline (the GHCR image).
  • Access control. A Studio-only auth mode hides /workspace, the node editor, and settings; the reused editors already work without them.
  • Curated voices. Script casting still offers the full TTS catalog; curate it the same way the image/video models are curated.
  • Known prototype seams.
    • The reused assemble hooks also open a workspace tab (harmless in Studio; the tab is simply there if the user ever visits /workspace).
    • Model stamping re-applies if a user clears all three storyboard models.
    • The storyboard/script pages are desktop-first; the workspace surfaces’ mobile pane-switchers were not carried over.
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