dissect

Reverse-engineer any video into a blueprint you can reuse.

Paste a link from YouTube, Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, X, Facebook, Vimeo, Reddit and more. You get a Markdown file you, an editor or an AI can follow to make a new video in the same format.

/dissect https://www.tiktok.com/@zachking/video/6768504823336815877

What it does

1. Downloads the video with yt-dlp. It falls back to browser impersonation and the newest yt-dlp release when a site pushes back, and uses your browser login only if you say yes.
2. Measures what machines measure well:
   • every cut and on-screen change (captions, graphics, dissolves) and the pace across the video
   • the opening, frame by frame, at 4–6 frames a second
   • a transcript with word timings: words per minute, pauses (and what comes after them), emphasised words, pitch and sentence endings
   • the music bed and its level under the voice, sound effects on cuts, loudness
   • platform stats, engagement ratios, top comments, and YouTube's most-replayed moments
   • labelled contact sheets of the frames
3. Watches and interprets. Claude looks at every frame sheet, lines up what's on screen with what's being said, and works out why the video works.
4. Writes the blueprint:
   • format card, hook breakdown, beat sheet, shot grammar
   • visual style guide (captions, fonts, colours), voice direction, sound design, packaging
   • a fill-in-the-blanks script, a production plan
   • prompts for script, voice, visuals, captions and music
   • an edit recipe and a QA checklist

Give it several links and it also writes formula.md: what stays constant across them, and what the best performer did differently.

Install

Claude Code (plugin)

/plugin marketplace add 0xpratzyy/dissect
/plugin install dissect@dissect

From a local clone, point the marketplace at the folder instead: /plugin marketplace add ./dissect.

Any agent that reads SKILL.md files (manual)

Copy the skill folder into your skills directory:

cp -r plugins/dissect/skills/dissect ~/.claude/skills/            # personal, every project
cp -r plugins/dissect/skills/dissect .claude/skills/              # this project only

Copy-Item -Recurse plugins\dissect\skills\dissect "$HOME\.claude\skills\"   # Windows

Requirements

Check everything, with install hints for your OS:

python3 plugins/dissect/skills/dissect/scripts/doctor.py --warmup

On first use, Whisper downloads a speech model: about 140 MB for quick, 480 MB for standard (the default), 1.5 GB for deep.

Use

Just talk to Claude:

• dissect this reel and tell me how to make one like it: <link>
• why did this go viral? <link>
• break down the first 3 minutes of this MrBeast video, I want his pacing: <link>
• here are 4 TikToks from the same creator, what's their formula? <links>

Or call it directly: /dissect <link or file> [more links] [quick|deep].

Each dissection lands in ./dissections/<date>-<platform>-<title>/:

<slug>.blueprint.md   the reusable blueprint
facts.md              every measurement, the shot list with what's said in each shot, the transcript
sheets/               hook.jpg (dense opening), shots-*.jpg, most-replayed.jpg, cover.jpg
data/                 analysis.json, transcript.json / .txt, info.json, comments.txt

The downloaded video is deleted afterwards (--keep-video keeps it), so a dissection is a couple of MB.

Script options

uv run plugins/dissect/skills/dissect/scripts/dissect.py <link-or-file> [options]

Privacy and fair use

• Everything runs on your computer. Nothing is uploaded anywhere.
• Browser cookies are read only when you approve it, for that one download.
• Blueprints quote the video sparingly and teach the format. They don't reproduce the script, the footage or anyone's likeness.
• Respect platform terms and creators' copyright: study, don't re-upload.

Troubleshooting downloads: references/downloading.md.

License

MIT