Install the Recharm video effects skill for Claude Code

The skill holds all 446 effects as the exact scripts we tested, so Claude runs those instead of writing new ones. Ask in plain words, like “add a punch-in zoom to input.mp4”.

Download the free skill

Install it in Claude Code

Paste this into Claude Code. Claude downloads the skill and unzips it into ~/.claude/skills:

Show the prompt
Install the Recharm video effects skill: download https://recharm-growth-staging.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/website/downloads/recharm-video-effects.zip and unzip it into ~/.claude/skills

To do it by hand, or on Windows:

  1. Download the skill above. It’s a small zip of text files and scripts.
  2. Unzip it into your skills folder. On a Mac or Linux:
    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
unzip ~/Downloads/recharm-video-effects.zip -d ~/.claude/skills
    On Windows, in PowerShell:
    Expand-Archive $HOME\Downloads\recharm-video-effects.zip -DestinationPath $HOME\.claude\skills
  3. Open Claude Code in the folder with your video and ask for an effect. If Claude Code was already running, it picks the skill up on its own; if this was your first skill, run /reload-skills once.

Skills live in ~/.claude/skills per Claude Code's skills docs.

What it needs on your computer

The effects run on ffmpeg, and the ones with text also use the Python library Pillow. The skill checks for both first; if one is missing it tells Claude the install command for your system, and Claude asks you before running it. To install them yourself:

SystemCommandSource
Mac (with Homebrew)brew install ffmpegHomebrew
Windowswinget install Gyan.FFmpeggyan.dev, linked from ffmpeg.org
Ubuntu or Debiansudo apt install ffmpegDebian
Pillow, any systempython3 -m pip install --upgrade PillowPillow

Homebrew’s ffmpeg leaves out the text filter (drawtext), which is why our text effects draw with Pillow. To check both are installed:

ffmpeg -version
python3 -m PIL

claude.ai and the Claude app

You can upload the same zip as a skill in claude.ai (how to), but claude.ai doesn’t document ffmpeg in its sandbox or list video among its upload types, so for video use Claude Code.

Without the skill

Every effect page also has a prompt you can paste into Claude Code. Claude then writes the command itself, which works, but the tested script is the surer route.