video_editing_poc/.claude/memory/ai-handover.md

AI Handover: Local Cinematic Highlight PoC

Last updated: 2026-07-23 (Europe/Berlin). This file goes stale — verify before trusting it.

FIRST: check for staleness (prevents the 2026-07-23 stale-session incident)

This handover was once resumed from an old commit while the repo had advanced 2 days on another branch/agent, wasting a whole session re-deriving already-built work. Do NOT let that happen:

git rev-parse --short HEAD          # compare to "Recorded HEAD" below
git log -8 --oneline --decorate
git status --short                  # uncommitted work may be the real current state

• Recorded HEAD when this was written: 8b68116, plus uncommitted working-tree changes (portrait + audio-mix + unbounded-duration fixes, see below).
• If HEAD is newer than 8b68116, or there are unfamiliar commits/uncommitted files, this file is behind the repo. The authoritative live state is: the git log, git status, and docs/cinematic-highlight-poc-plan.md (milestone log at its tail). Trust those over this file.
• If a claude agents background session is still "running" for this repo, only one agent should mutate the repo at a time (renders/commits/state). Confirm the others are stopped.

What exists NOW (built, not aspirational)

The full local single-source cinematic-highlight pipeline is implemented and working end-to-end: analysis → candidates/category → (manual) director plan → local asset generation → cinematic FFmpeg render → QA. Models are provisioned and proven (Piper voice, MusicGen music, AudioLDM2 SFX) — see local-model-runtime-intel-mac. The user authorized model downloads on 2026-07-21 (this reversed the earlier no-download stance; that reversal is real and current).

To run source → final render, follow highlight-e2e-render-runbook — do not re-derive it.

Fixes applied 2026-07-23 (whole service, not just PoC) — uncommitted in working tree

1. Portrait/orientation: FfmpegClipInspector now reads rotation side-data/rotate tag and stores the EFFECTIVE (display) width/height. HighlightFfmpegRenderer.outputGeometry() renders portrait sources to a portrait frame and skips the 2.39 letterbox (landscape unchanged). Fixes portrait phone footage being stretched into landscape.
2. Audio mix: source audio ([0:a]) is now ducked (-20 dB, or -24 with narration) so the generated score leads instead of being buried; montage music cue raised to -9 dB. In HighlightFfmpegRenderer.audioMixCommand
   • the montage cue in HighlightDirectorFlowService.
3. Duration constraint removed: HighlightDirectorPlanValidator no longer enforces min/max highlight duration (only positive/finite + sane playback speed + candidate containment). Config defaults relaxed (min 2 / max 3600 as soft candidate hints only). A highlight can be as long as the story needs. Montage path was already unconstrained.

mvn -o verify: 254 tests, 0 failures (JaCoCo gate passes). 6 new tests cover the above. NOT yet committed — the user has not asked to commit.

Still open / next levers (from docs/cinematic-highlight-poc-plan.md Phase 5)

• Source footage quality is the ceiling (e.g. 576p phone clips upscale soft). Biggest lever.
• No resident local director — plans are hand-authored (montage.json). P5.2/P5.5.
• Bigger/continuous music (musicgen-medium is slow on CPU) — P5.3.
• In-shot zoompan push-in, beat-synced cut lengths — P5.4.
• Licensing: MusicGen CC-BY-NC, AudioLDM2 CC-BY-NC-SA, YOLOv8 AGPL → non-commercial. Production needs commercially-licensed models — P5.7.
• Production hardening (security, CI/CD, containers, PostgreSQL, no-egress cert) deferred until quality passes.

Non-negotiables still in force (except downloads, which the user authorized)

No external AI services in the media path; no unlicensed assets shipped as production; no placeholder silence/tones as success; no rendering without explicit approval; record license/provenance for every model. Manual approval is fine for the PoC. Do not commit unless the user asks.