meta-short-drama

End-to-end short-drama generator with an explicit-consent review flow before any paid external-media step. 1-10 shots (default 5), title card + ending card, in-language burned subtitles, and the generated script is saved to disk regardless of outcome. A direct approval continues immediately; an edit only produces a revised preview and requires a second explicit approval.

What it does

1. intake_extract scans the user message for RENDER_STYLE, IDENTITY_ANCHOR, and N_SHOTS (1-10). Fills in defaults when missing.
2. script_draft calls ai-video-script with the inferred values pasted verbatim into every shot prompt.
3. review_gate — free-form draft review. The user can approve, request changes to render style / character / shot count / shot details, or cancel in plain language.
4. review_intent is local and deterministic. Explicit approval may proceed, while a recognizable adjustment emits DECISION: revise; the adjustment never authorizes an external call.
5. script_revised (conditional) applies requested overrides, then revision_confirm_gate shows the revised preview and requires a new explicit approval. review_normalize is the final paid-media consent authority; cancel, missing, ambiguous, off-topic, and further-edit replies fail closed without provider calls.
6. final_script freezes the canonical scheduler snapshot in memory; it never re-reads the user-editable artifact.
7. script_save writes that same canonical content to script.txt in the run folder (always — even on cancel, so the user keeps the draft).
8. title_extract / subtitle_extract / ending_text_extract pull cover/ending text in the script's language.
9. cover_image + cover_video — Pillow title card + 2s Ken-Burns clip (0_cover.mp4 — sorts first in merge).
10. Per-shot extracts × 10 — all slots are declared, but an exact === SHOT_N === header check deterministically skips absent script blocks before calling the LLM. Active extracts still use __SHOT_ABSENT__ as a second fail-closed guard, and paid image/video steps repeat the exact-header check so an LLM cannot activate an unused slot.
11. Image generation per active shot — nano-banana-pro, at most one paid submit, followed by a local placeholder PNG on a verified policy refusal (the image step never aborts the DAG). Provider responses and ambiguous transport outcomes never trigger an automatic second paid request.
12. reference_prompt_extract + reference_image — one extra nano-banana-pro call produces reference.png, a full-cast neutral lineup of every named character on a neutral backdrop. Used as the universal IDENTITY anchor for every shot's seedance call so the character does not drift across cuts (nano-banana would otherwise re-roll subtly different character designs per shot).
13. Video generation per active shot — seedance-2.0; paid submit failures are never retried automatically because an ambiguous response may already represent a billed job. After a job id is issued, transient polling failures may retry that same job up to the configured limit. Any provider-policy refusals stop immediately without another paid submission. The Ken-Burns substitute then fires using the shot's PNG. Each shot passes TWO reference images to seedance, AND the per-shot prompt is wrapped with an explicit "Assets Mapping" preamble in the upstream JiMeng convention so seedance knows the role of each reference: reference[1] = reference.png (full-cast fictional design anchor — preserves silhouette / hairstyle / costumes / accessories without reproducing real-person likeness) reference[2] = N_shot.png (this shot's scene composition reference — used for camera angle, framing, blocking, prop placement, background layout) The Assets Mapping preamble is in English even when the per-shot directive is Chinese — seedance parses English instruction prefixes reliably regardless of the user-content language. Empty / missing references are still filtered before the API call (so direct CLI callers using a single anchor remain backwards-compatible).
14. ending_image + ending_video — Pillow "完" / "THE END" card
    • 2s Ken-Burns clip (99_ending.mp4 — sorts last).
15. merge — video-merger stitches 0_cover + active shots
    • 99_ending via numeric-prefix sort. ffmpeg cross-fade transitions.
16. subtitles_srt — SRT cues from VOICEOVER per shot, shifted by the 2-second cover duration so cue timing matches the merged timeline.
17. subtitled_final — subtitle-burner burns the SRT into final_subtitled.mp4.
18. publish_final_video + publish_script — register the final MP4 (video/mp4) and script (text/plain) with the active surface so browser users receive artifact controls instead of only a local path. The script is published even when the user cancels; the video is published only after a successful proceed path.
19. delivery_audit — deterministic receipt/fallback/ffprobe gate. It combines validated receipts with the scheduler's bounded, parent-owned paid-submission dispositions (safe_no_submit, maybe_accepted, or receipt; only a conclusive receipt becomes confirmed). It is the sole authority for API provenance and reports both story content duration and the probed final duration (content + 4s bookends). A fallback after a proven pre-submit failure does not trigger a billing warning; ambiguous submission outcomes still emit only a sanitized asset list and check-history warning.
20. deliver — always runs, branches on DECISION, and waits for the deterministic audit before composing delivery. It only restates the machine-owned verdict and cannot promote fallback media to a verified real-API result.

Outputs

<workspace>/meta_short_drama/<meta_run_id>/
    script.txt              # full final script (always; published artifact)
    reference.png           # full-cast identity reference (used by every shot_video)
    0_cover.png  0_cover.mp4
    1_shot.png   1_shot.mp4   ┐
    2_shot.png   2_shot.mp4   ├ only for active shots (1..N_SHOTS)
    ...                       ┘
    *.png.receipt.json       # image provider/request or placeholder status
    *.mp4.receipt.json       # video provider/model/job status
    99_ending.png 99_ending.mp4
    subs.srt
    final.mp4               # merged, no subtitles
    final_subtitled.mp4     # subtitled — published video deliverable

Dependencies

Environment:

• OPENROUTER_API_KEY must be set.
• ffmpeg and ffprobe on PATH.
• Pillow installed (already in opensquilla deps).

Risk

high — writes files, spends real OpenRouter credits, runs ffmpeg subprocesses. The review gate plus deterministic normalizer ensures explicit approval or a meaningful requested adjustment before any external media step.

Limits (v2)

• 1-10 shots; default 5. The DAG always declares 10 slots but __SHOT_ABSENT__ gating keeps unused slots dormant.
• Per-shot duration follows the script's DURATION_S (clamped 3-15s by seedance API). OVERVIEW.DURATION_S means story-shot content duration; the final MP4 adds a fixed 2s title + 2s ending (content + 4s).
• 9:16 portrait.
• Per-shot seedance failures fall back to Ken-Burns. Image step has its own placeholder fallback. Both are explicitly reported as degraded and cannot satisfy the verified-real-API E2E status. Prompt-extract llm_chats still abort the run if they return malformed output.
• Every run uses its runtime-owned meta_run_id subdirectory, so concurrent runs and post-review additional_notes cannot redirect or collide outputs.

When NOT to use

• Single image / single clip / script-only / stitch-only — use the underlying skills directly.