Hyperframes Core

<!-- Public portability adaptation, 2026-09-26. -->

Install this skill with its sibling skills. See runtime setup and capability boundaries before executing commands. User instructions and the requested production stage take precedence over workflow defaults.

HyperFrames Core

HyperFrames renders video from HTML. A composition is an HTML file whose DOM declares timing with data-* attributes, whose animation runtime is seekable, and whose media playback is owned by the framework.

This skill is the technical contract — how to build one hyperframes project. The body below is the build guide; per-topic detail lives in references/ (index next), read on demand. Other concerns live in the sibling domain skills — hyperframes-animation, hyperframes-creative, hyperframes-media, hyperframes-cli, hyperframes-registry. The capability map in /hyperframes says what each one covers.

References

File	Read it to…
references/minimal-composition.md	start from the smallest renderable composition skeleton
references/composition-patterns.md	choose monolithic vs modular; structure a modular index.html; pick a sub-comp archetype
references/data-attributes.md	look up any data-* (root / clip / sub-comp host / legacy aliases); use class="clip"
references/tracks-and-clips.md	pick data-track-index, handle same-track overlap / z-index, time a clip relative to another
references/sub-compositions.md	wire a sub-composition (host attrs, <template>, per-instance vars) and animate inside it
references/variables-and-media.md	declare variables; place <video>/<audio>, set volume, trim
references/determinism-rules.md	build a seekable timeline; determinism bans; the animatable-property allowlist; layout / text fit
references/full-screen-motion.md	author full-frame motion with shared backgrounds
references/spatial-canvas.md	build one persistent oversized world with authored camera visits, cutaways, and exact returns
references/review-to-final-assembly.md	convert approved studies to native rendering, word-locked events, media windows and long-film audit
references/storyboard-format.md	author a STORYBOARD.md plan (+ the parsed manifest)
references/script-format.md	author the optional SCRIPT.md locked narration
references/subagent-dispatch.md	map subagent dispatch verbs (parallel fan-out / background / wait) to your harness
references/tailwind.md	work in a Tailwind v4 project (init --tailwind; runtime contract differs from Studio's v3)

For animation runtime specifics (GSAP API, Lottie, Three.js, etc.) go to hyperframes-animation → adapters/<runtime>.md.

Building a composition

Two root forms (not interchangeable)

• Standalone (top-level index.html) — root <div data-composition-id="…"> sits directly in <body>, no <template> wrapper (wrapping it hides all content and breaks rendering).
• Sub-composition (loaded via data-composition-src) — root must be wrapped in <template>.

⚠ Transport rule: the runtime only clones <template> contents; everything outside (incl. <head> styles/scripts) is discarded — put <style>/<script> inside the template. ⚠ Host-id rule: the host slot's data-composition-id must exactly equal the inner template's data-composition-id and the window.__timelines["<id>"] key — no -mount/-slot/-host suffix.

File shape, host wiring, and the pre-render checklist → references/sub-compositions.md.

Root must be sized (silent layout bug)

The standalone root needs an explicit sized box (width/height in px), and every ancestor down to a height:100% element must have a resolved height — otherwise a flex/100% child collapses to ~0 and content piles into the top-left corner. lint/validate/inspect do not catch this. Skeleton → references/minimal-composition.md.

One paused timeline

Each composition registers exactly one gsap.timeline({ paused: true }) at window.__timelines["<id>"] (key = root data-composition-id), built synchronously at page load. Render duration = root data-duration, not timeline length. Don't manually nest sub-timelines into the host. Full contract (incl. non-GSAP runtimes) → references/determinism-rules.md + hyperframes-animation/adapters/.

Non-negotiable rules (silent bugs lint/validate/inspect won't catch)

Surfaced here; full rationale in the linked reference. Do not violate:

• No render-time clocks / unseeded Math.random / network / input-state; no repeat: -1 (use a finite count). → determinism-rules.md
• Animate only the visual-property allowlist; never display/visibility; no gsap.set on later-scene clips. → determinism-rules.md
• No <br> in body text; transformed elements must be block-level + sized; pulsing absolute decoratives need peak clearance. → determinism-rules.md
• <video>/<audio> must be a direct child of the host root (never inside a sub-comp <template>/wrapper); the framework owns playback. → variables-and-media.md
• Every id must be unique across the assembled page; inside a sub-comp, prefix ids with the composition id (#<id>-hero). Duplicate <video>/<img> ids render blank — the producer injects frames by getElementById, and cross-file dupes slip past lint. → composition-patterns.md
• A full-screen scene fill goes on a full-bleed child (position:absolute; inset:0), never on the composition root itself — the producer's frame compositing can drop the root element's own background (the frame renders black) even though preview/snapshot show it correctly. → composition-patterns.md

Editing existing compositions

• Read the files first. Preserve unrelated timing, tracks, IDs, variables, media paths.
• Match existing composition IDs and timeline keys.
• Adding a clip: pick a non-overlapping data-track-index or adjust surrounding timing intentionally.
• Adding a sub-composition: verify its internal data-composition-id before wiring the host.

Validation

Use hyperframes-cli for command details

• npx hyperframes lint passes (0 errors)
• npx hyperframes validate passes (0 console errors)
• npx hyperframes inspect passes (0 errors)
• Projects with sub-compositions: npx hyperframes snapshot --at <midpoints> and eyeball each frame
• npx hyperframes preview for review (the user can edit anything in Studio's timeline)
• Render previews and final outputs within the current authorization; when the user explicitly requests review before assembly, complete that review stage first. A final-delivery request or delegated discretion does not need another routine approval.