automate-this

1# Automate This
2 
3Analyze a screen recording of a manual process and build working automation for it.
4 
5The user records themselves doing something repetitive or tedious, hands you the video file, and you figure out what they're doing, why, and how to script it away.
6 
7## Prerequisites Check
8 
9Before analyzing any recording, verify the required tools are available. Run these checks silently and only surface problems:
10 
11```bash
12command -v ffmpeg >/dev/null 2>&1 && ffmpeg -version 2>/dev/null | head -1 || echo "NO_FFMPEG"
13command -v whisper >/dev/null 2>&1 || command -v whisper-cpp >/dev/null 2>&1 || echo "NO_WHISPER"
14```
15 
16- **ffmpeg is required.** If missing, tell the user: `brew install ffmpeg` (macOS) or the equivalent for their OS.
17- **Whisper is optional.** Only needed if the recording has narration. If missing AND the recording has an audio track, suggest: `pip install openai-whisper` or `brew install whisper-cpp`. If the user declines, proceed with visual analysis only.
18 
19## Phase 1: Extract Content from the Recording
20 
21Given a video file path (typically on `~/Desktop/`), extract both visual frames and audio:
22 
23### Frame Extraction
24 
25Extract frames at one frame every 2 seconds. This balances coverage with context window limits.
26 
27```bash
28WORK_DIR=$(mktemp -d "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/automate-this-XXXXXX")
29chmod 700 "$WORK_DIR"
30mkdir -p "$WORK_DIR/frames"
31ffmpeg -y -i "<VIDEO_PATH>" -vf "fps=0.5" -q:v 2 -loglevel warning "$WORK_DIR/frames/frame_%04d.jpg"
32ls "$WORK_DIR/frames/" | wc -l
33```
34…