HOW TO — 2 / 6
Assuming you have one video already shot, this walks you from creating a project to a finished MP4. You don't need to memorize any commands. The “words to type” are all ordinary everyday English.
1 — Create a project
Once you've finished installing, open the app and start from the home screen. Press “+ Start a new video” and the “New project” popup opens.
A working title is fine (you can change it later).
A channel groups videos of the same series. Each channel can have its own kit, people and styles. If you don't have one yet, create it with “+ New channel”. You can also make a video outside any channel, but then the channel's kit, people and styles aren't available.
If this is your first time, Start blank is fine. You begin with no footage and no settings, and build it up however you like.
Start from a playbook carries over how a finished video was made (structure, length, the tools it needs, and its breakdown). You can narrow the choices by category and source: your own playbooks, your channel's playbooks, and playbooks from Lab. When you pick one, a confirmation sheet shows what will be included and whether the tools it needs are in place. Once you start, the breakdown becomes placeholder frames on the timeline (dotted frames with a heading and a note) and “Plan” lines in the script. When you add footage, it replaces the placeholders.
One video = one folder. A set like this is created automatically:
The File map explains the folders in detail. For now, all you need to remember is: put things in assets/, and they come out of exports/. From the terminal, use akari new <folder> (or akari new <folder> --from <playbook> to start from a playbook). --scaffold, which picks the starting base, arrives in the next release (v1.5.0 uses --template; the old name stays as an alias).
2 — The first-time guide
The first time you open the app, it asks whether this is your first time using AKARI Video. Choose “first time” and it walks you through a guide project in this order:
You can reopen the guide at any time from “Getting started guide” in Settings, or “Replay the first guide” on the home screen. If you set the UI language to English, the demo is in English too.
3 — Add footage and ask
Drag the video you shot into the “Assets” band in the left panel (if dragging is awkward, use the import button). Items line up as cards, and when you select one you can play it to check. The Assets band can be narrowed by type with the funnel menu (All / Video / Image / Audio and so on).
If you started from a playbook, drop footage onto a dotted placeholder and it replaces the placeholder in the same position.
On the home screen, press “Open Planning form”, choose what to do, the target duration, and how much to delegate, then press “Send to Partner”. What you tick becomes the instruction to your partner as is. You can change it afterwards (from the Planning switch on the screen).
| How much to delegate | How it works |
|---|---|
| With suggestions (default, recommended) | Checks with you once before export, then runs on its own. It also stops wherever a playbook says “I want to confirm this part” |
| Create together | Checks with you at the key points of direction, footage and execution. For people who want to weigh in closely |
| Fully automatic | No checks along the way. It runs to the end and you look afterwards. Best once you're used to it |
Say one thing to the AI partner on the right, in plain language:
The analysis and “why this cut” are explained in a report with images, which lines up in the “Records” band on the left. Reports are read-only; you make decisions in the chat. Work that stays on your machine (transcription, proxy creation, editing) is free.
In the default “With suggestions” mode, you confirm just once, before export. Everything your partner does is kept as a separate step, so from “History” on the project home you can always “View changes” or “Restore to before this”.
But for things that can't be undone, your partner stops in every mode and shows a bar at the top of the screen: publishing, submitting, paid generation, sending data outside, deleting original footage and so on. You answer with “Approve” or “Cancel”.
4 — Check, fix, and export
A first draft with cuts, captions, subtitles and BGM is on the timeline and in the preview. Play it, drag a caption to move it, or mark a spot with the pen or a pin and “Hand to AI” to fix it. Every edit is recorded in one file, edit.json (your save data). The next page, “Open and fix”, covers this in detail.
Press “Export” in the left column (the Exports band). The default quality and destination are enough, so just press “Export”. If you want to change them, you can do it right there.
You can also just ask your partner to export (it shows you the contents and runs only after you confirm). Progress appears at the bottom right. The finished file lines up under “Outputs” and is saved as an MP4 in exports/.
5 — Notes
Start with “I want to make some kind of video” and the AI asks questions, builds a plan, and even suggests how to get footage (plan → outline → storyboard → shot list). On Lab, we give away 10 example playbooks for free, covering film, vlogs, product introductions and more. Install one with akari store install <id> and it appears under the “Lab” source when you start from a playbook.
Work that stays on your machine (transcription, editing, exporting) is free. You only pay when you use an outside service, such as cloud transcription or generated narration, and you see an estimate and approve it before anything runs. The AI partner itself is billed under each service's own contract (Claude, ChatGPT and so on).