baocut

An AI video agent built around an editable video, not a one-shot MP4. Tell it what you want. It transcribes, subtitles, translates, dubs, cuts and animates. Every result lands in a timeline you can keep editing.

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Download and install

BaoCut is available for macOS and Windows. The links below always download the latest release; version numbers and release notes are on baocut.com and GitHub Releases. Packaged apps include the Runtime and native workers; Node.js and Rust are only needed for development.

On macOS, open the DMG and drag BaoCut into Applications. On Windows, install the Microsoft Visual C++ v14 x64 Redistributable first, then run the installer or extract the ZIP. Windows packages are unsigned; GPU variants need compatible graphics drivers. Checksums and verification details are on each release's GitHub page. The app checks GitHub Releases for updates through its platform-specific update feed.

External agents use the desktop CLI entrypoint; see that guide for absolute paths, BAOCUT_CLI, and older packages that lack it.

Agent features require a signed-in agent engine such as Codex CLI or Claude Code. Media analysis, transcription preparation and export also require ffmpeg and ffprobe; these external tools are not bundled.

Local models download from Hugging Face by default. If it is unreachable or slow, set the download source to ModelScope (Download and storage at the bottom of a model page's local models, or Settings › General › Model download source) to download from ModelScope instead (the few model files ModelScope lacks still come from Hugging Face; every file is checked against its built-in checksum), or choose Custom and enter a mirror's base URL.

Why BaoCut

Most AI video tools render once and hand you a file. If the second sentence of the translation is wrong, you start over. BaoCut takes the opposite stance:

• The video is the source of truth. Transcripts, translations, subtitle layers, chapters, voice-overs and motion graphics all live inside one editable video. Files (SRT, MP4, audio, transcripts) are exports of it, never the other way around.
• Local edits stay local. Fix one subtitle line, swap one shot, redo one voice-over sentence. The agent changes exactly that and reports a receipt of what changed. Nothing else is re-rendered.
• Humans and the agent share one editor. You drag a clip, the agent rewrites a caption; both go through the same command gateway, the same transactions, the same undo stack. You can take over at any point.
• Bounded autonomy. The agent works inside an explicit scope, access mode and budget. Destructive actions ask first. Untrusted material (a downloaded page, a transcript) is data, never instructions.
• Honest delivery. The agent reports what it measured, what it actually looked at, and what still needs a human ear. A failed check is reported as a failed check, not hidden behind "done".

What it can do

From existing footage

• Transcribe with local models (Whisper large-v3 / v3-turbo, Qwen3-ASR, MOSS with diarization) or online APIs, with word-level timing. Segments stream into the timeline while the job runs.
• Subtitle in the original language, translated, or bilingual. The agent translates sentence by sentence itself; subtitle styles are remembered per project.
• Dub into another language. Translate, separate vocals from background (HTDemucs), synthesize per sentence with a cloned or preset voice, lay the new track on the timeline.
• Cut a talking-head recording. Remove filler words, long pauses, retakes and false starts on the timeline. The original media is never touched.
• Chapters, summaries, titles, blog posts, shorts. Read the timed transcript and write the derivatives, with every claim traceable to a timestamp.

From a brief

• Make a video from a prompt with 24 built-in scene templates and example prompts: explainers, product launches, trailers, tutorials, data stories, typography motion and more.
• Narration-first production. Plan the script, synthesize the voice in one pass, then cut the picture to the narration.
• Motion graphics as code. The agent writes a self-contained HTML composition (lower thirds, big numbers, callouts, brand stingers), imports it as a code bundle, bakes frames and places it on the timeline. Supports BaoCut's own baocut/1 contract and hyperframes/1.
• Image generation for shots that need a still: local Qwen-Image or online providers.

Delivery

• Export MP4 with burned-in or sidecar subtitles, SRT / WebVTT, transcripts, audio stems, and a portable .baocut bundle that reopens on another machine for continued editing. The bundle includes a video snapshot and all document and asset versions; it does not include the original video's complete transaction or undo history.

Four ways in, one Runtime

Every surface talks to the same local Runtime over the same protocol and edits the same video.

Bring your own agent engine. Claude Code and Codex CLI are validated end to end. GitHub Copilot CLI, Pi and OpenCode are built in, and any Agent Client Protocol agent (Qwen Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor Agent, Grok, Kimi Code, or one you add) plugs in through the same driver.

Bring your own models. Capabilities (transcribe, speak, generate image, generate text, separate audio) are decoupled from providers. Run local models on Apple Silicon (MLX, Core ML) or on Windows (whisper.cpp + candle, with CUDA and Vulkan builds), with local speech (Qwen3-TTS, IndexTTS, VoxCPM2, OmniVoice, Fish Audio S2 Pro; Built with Fish Audio, research/non-commercial license) and music on the bundled audio.cpp engine, or point a capability at OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, ElevenLabs, DeepSeek, Moonshot, Qwen, Zhipu, MiniMax, Volcengine, xAI, Mistral, Groq, OpenRouter, SiliconFlow or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. A usage ledger tracks cost per job. One machine can share its local models with others on the LAN.

Run from source

For normal use, choose a packaged app: it includes the Rust workers and WASM, so you do not need Node.js, Rust or a compiler. Source development has two paths:

Agent conversations additionally need an installed, signed-in agent engine. Media analysis, transcription preparation and export need ffmpeg and ffprobe on PATH. Neither is bundled. Opening the app does not require an agent login.

1. Install the tools for your OS

Install Git and Node.js 24.22.1+ (LTS) first. Open a new terminal and check git --version, node --version and npm --version. For lite mode, skip the Rust/compiler steps below and continue at step 2.

macOS

Install the Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install). If you use Homebrew, install CMake and FFmpeg with brew install cmake ffmpeg. Install Rust using the official rustup installer:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
. "$HOME/.cargo/env"
rustup default stable
rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown

On Apple Silicon with macOS 14+, the local model worker uses MLX / Core ML and also needs full Xcode with the Metal compiler. Install Xcode, launch it once to finish setup, and select it (adjust the path if installed elsewhere):

sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
xcrun --find metal
# If Metal is missing from the selected Xcode:
xcodebuild -downloadComponent MetalToolchain

Intel Macs use candle / whisper.cpp instead, requiring CMake and a C++ compiler. Published macOS packages target Apple Silicon; Intel source builds are not covered by the release checks.

Windows x64

Install Visual Studio / Build Tools with Desktop development with C++, the MSVC x64 tools and a Windows SDK (see Rust's MSVC prerequisites). Install CMake with its PATH option enabled, and LLVM for the libclang used by Rust bindings. If bindings cannot locate it, set LIBCLANG_PATH to LLVM's bin directory. Install FFmpeg with both ffmpeg.exe and ffprobe.exe on PATH.

Download and run rustup-init.exe, keeping the default x86_64-pc-windows-msvc host. Reopen an x64 Native Tools Command Prompt or a Developer PowerShell configured for x64 before running the source-build commands; a regular terminal may find Rust but lack cl.exe and the SDK environment.

rustup default stable
rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown
cargo --version
cmake --version
cl /?