Pipeline notes: getting AI video out cleanly
The notes cover choosing between an app and an API, agents, resolution claims, editing hand-off, subtitles and files that expire. As of 2026-09-25.
Examples in the notes come from the register and link to the tool they describe.
Nothing was called for them; they rest on the documentation.
They are written for the moment a clip has to leave the tool that made it.
Several notes contrast two approaches, because pipeline choices are usually between them.
Each example can be checked against the documentation it links to.
The notes lean on the tools that document the most, which are not necessarily the tools that do the most; a sparse page is a reason to ask, not a verdict.
Read them alongside the questions, which answer the same concerns tool by tool.
None of them depends on a particular tool; the tools are there as worked examples.
1Pages in this section
- Agents are arriving in video tools — Twelve tools document MCP connections, most of them added recently, from Runway, Higgsfield, Krea and MiniMax to Replicate, HeyGen and Descript; Kling.
- App or API: deciding how to work — Of the 28 tools in the register, 25 document an API, and most of the apps built on models do too.
- Avatar APIs document more of the pipeline — The avatar video makers on the register document more hooks than most.
- Check the SDK languages before choosing — Official SDKs come in few languages.
- Choose between webhooks and polling — A finished job is signalled one of two ways.
- Copy results before links expire — Many APIs hand back results through links that expire.
- Expect MP4 unless the page says otherwise — Where a tool names its file, it is usually MP4.
- Keep text out of the picture — Descript and HeyGen hand subtitles over as SRT and VTT files, Kapwing handles both too, and SceneMixer leaves captions off its videos on purpose.
- Match storage to the review cycle — How long a result stays available ranges from an hour to a month.
- One API for many models: what to check — Three tools on the register put many makers' models behind one API: fal with over a thousand, Replicate with makers' models and custom ones, and Pika.
- Plan the hand-off to editing early — Only four tools document a route into editing or finishing: Luma's EXR export, Descript's timeline export, LTX's XML export and invideo's own timeline.
- Resolution claims need their conditions — Resolution is named by 20 tools, and almost every figure comes with a condition.