I Built a YouTube Shorts Generator with AI — Here's How

#tutorial #ai #automation #javascript

What if you could generate 10 YouTube Shorts in just 5 minutes — all from a simple JSON file? That's exactly what I built using Claude Code and Remotion, and in this post, I'll walk you through how it works.

The Problem

Creating YouTube Shorts consistently is time-consuming. You need to design animations, render videos, and repeat the process for every single short. I wanted a pipeline where I could just change the data and get a brand-new video automatically.

The Solution: Remotion + Claude Code

I combined two powerful tools:

Remotion — A React-based framework that lets you create videos programmatically using code. Think of it as writing React components, but the output is an MP4 video instead of a web page.
Claude Code — Anthropic's AI coding assistant that lives in your terminal. I used it to build the entire Remotion project through natural language prompts.

How It Works

The workflow is straightforward. First, you set up a Remotion project and define your video template with React components. Then, you use Claude Code to iterate on the design — adding smooth animations, emojis, particle effects, and custom color schemes through simple conversational prompts. Finally, you feed in a JSON file with your content, and Remotion renders it to MP4.

The best part? Changing the JSON data gives you a completely new video. No re-coding needed.

What I Covered in the Full Tutorial

The full video tutorial covers everything from setting up the Remotion project, walking through Remotion Studio, a live building session with Claude Code, iterating on animations and visual effects, and rendering the final MP4 output.