hermes-youtube-avatar-head

Hermes — avatar-head talking video

When to use

Joshua (or a task) asks for an avatar / avatar-head / talking-head video: one character, a written script, no real face. If the content is a daily news recap from content/yesterday-news/, prefer hermes-youtube-faceless-news; use this skill for any other scripted talking-head piece.

Pipeline

1. Script — take the assigned script text (from the task or a file). Cap at 90s unless the task says longer. Write it to ops/marketing-inbox/youtube-avatar-<slug>-script.md.
2. Avatar asset — use the repo's approved avatar asset if one exists (check content/ and assets/ for avatar/head images first). If none, create a simple branded head placeholder (circle + initials) — do NOT scrape a real person's likeness. No real face, no celebrity, no generated deepfake-style head.
3. Lip-sync — if an avatar/TTS tool with lip-sync is configured, use it. Otherwise: static head over a subtle pan/zoom (Ken Burns) with the voiceover, and mark lip-sync UNVERIFIED. Never fake a lip-sync file.
4. Voiceover — TTS per paragraph; if no TTS, produce captions (.srt) and mark voiceover UNVERIFIED.
5. Assemble — ffmpeg: 1080x1920 (shorts) or 1920x1080, h264, yuv420p. Log the exact command + ffprobe duration as evidence.
6. Packet — ops/packets/hermes-youtube-avatar-<slug>/: script, avatar asset source, commands run, manifest, mp4 path + duration. VERIFIED / UNVERIFIED per line.
7. Publish — only after Joshua's recorded approval; approved channel only.

Hard limits

Same as hermes-youtube-faceless-news: no invented content, business-only copy, no publish without approval, evidence handles everywhere, no credentials in files, no push/merge.

• House rules: docs/house/HOUSE-MOTION-RULE.md and docs/standards/AGENT-STANDARD.md. Read before any design, site, dashboard or header job. Pointers only; do not restate rules here.
• Current beats existing: fetch and pull main first; origin main wins over clone, cache, journal and definition file; a clone that cannot fast-forward stops and reports (ops/handoffs/FABLE-HANDOFFS-2026-11-06.md section 0).