wtf is videolane?

VideoLane is an open-source tool that turns written scripts and product workflows into finished videos. Instead of just helping you write a script, it handles the full production process: recording your screen, adding captions, mixing in background audio, generating voiceover narration, creating short clips, drafting a thumbnail concept, writing YouTube metadata, and packaging everything for upload. It is written in TypeScript and can also be installed as a Python package. The core idea is that you start with a markdown script. VideoLane reads that script and builds a structured video plan, breaking it into scenes based on headings, estimating how long each scene will take from the word count, and figuring out what browser actions to record. You can then record those actions automatically using Playwright, a browser automation tool. If Playwright is not installed, VideoLane runs in a dry-run mode that shows what it would do without actually recording anything. From there, the tool moves through the remaining production steps. It generates caption files in formats like SRT or VTT, creates background audio in styles such as ambient or cinematic, and produces voiceover narration using a free text-to-speech library called edge-tts. Rendering is handled by ffmpeg, a widely used video tool, which combines the recording, captions, and audio into a final video. You can render in multiple aspect ratios, including 16:9, 9:16, and 1:1. VideoLane also prepares everything you need to publish on YouTube. It writes title options, descriptions with tracking links, tags, chapters, and a pinned comment. It generates a thumbnail brief with text suggestions, colors, and layout notes, plus an SVG mockup and instructions for Canva. A packaging command gathers the video and metadata into a single folder ready for manual upload. If you want to automate the upload itself, VideoLane can push directly to YouTube through the YouTube Data API. Uploads are gated behind confirmation flags, so a public upload requires two separate confirmations. You can also run it as an API server or use it as a software development kit in TypeScript projects. The full README is longer than what was shown.