Paste a Link, Get Ready-to-Post Shorts
Open Shorts is a free, self-hostable tool. Paste a long video or stream link and it finds the best moments, crops them to 9:16 and burns in captions. It's MIT-licensed and runs with Docker; you bring your own API keys.
How the Pipeline Works
Open Shorts takes in a video or stream, uses AI to pick the strongest moments, reframes them to vertical with subject tracking, and adds word-level captions. Think of it as a self-hosted alternative to OpusClip.
- Paste a stream or video link
- AI finds the highlights
- Clips are cropped to 9:16 with captions
- You review and post
You'll need your own keys for services like Gemini and ElevenLabs.
The Real Catch: Rights
The tool is neutral, but reposting someone else's footage isn't risk-free. Clip a game stream and the footage belongs to the publisher and the streamer. Monetizing reposts can get you struck or demonetized, and platforms keep tightening their reuse rules.
Get permission where you need it, and follow each platform's reuse and monetization rules. Being early helps, but payouts aren't guaranteed.
What's in the Guide
What Open Shorts does, the paste-to-post pipeline, the self-hosting setup and keys you'll need, the rights and monetization risks, and a direct link to the repo.
The full field guide is in the PDF.
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