Celesta

Celesta

Celesta is a code-first video tool. Build animated scenes with React and TypeScript, combining video, images, text, shapes, and audio. Preview your work in the Celesta desktop app and export it as MP4, transparent MOV or WebM, or PNG, JPEG, or WebP frames.

Website · Documentation · 日本語ドキュメント · Download · Showcase

Celesta is under active development. The official website includes a browser playground, example projects, and the full user guide in English and Japanese.

See it in action

Reel by Claude Opus 5.5

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/df585cd3-26a1-4d35-aaff-e36eea4e7d14

Explore the showcase to try browser-ready projects and view their source. The examples directory contains the projects and their setup instructions.

What you can do

• Compose with React: build reusable scenes with components, hooks, sequences, transitions, interpolation, and springs.
• Create motion graphics: combine text, shapes, paths, particles, layouts, and visual effects with local or remote media.
• Preview as you edit: play with synchronized audio, scrub or step through frames, and inspect layers and tracks. The app reloads when you save your source.
• Adjust on the canvas: move, rotate, resize, or retype a layer, or edit its props in the Properties tab. Celesta writes the change back into your source, with undo.
• Build character dialogue: combine image or PSD portraits, expressions, subtitles, voice recordings, lip sync, and blinking.
• Export and automate: render videos, PNG, JPEG, or WebP frames, and contact sheets from the desktop app or CLI, with JSON results and MCP tools for scripts and agents.

Get started

1. Download and install Celesta for macOS or Windows. The packages include the React runtime, Node.js, and media dependencies.
2. Choose File › Create New Project…, pick a template, and select a folder.
3. Edit the generated film.tsx in your text editor. Save to reload the preview, then choose Export… to write a video.

For Linux, follow the source-build guide or use the headless container.

The website documents the complete workflow:

Use with AI agents

Install the Celesta Agent Skill to teach coding agents such as Claude Code and Codex to write, inspect, and export compositions:

npx skills add mika-f/celesta

The desktop packages also ship Celesta-mcp, an MCP server for project initialization, scene inspection, PNG frame and contact-sheet rendering, video export, and documentation matching the installed version. For example, register it with Claude Code on macOS:

claude mcp add celesta -- /Applications/Celesta.app/Contents/MacOS/Celesta-mcp

On Windows, register Celesta-mcp.exe from the install folder. From source, build it with cargo build -p celesta-mcp --release. See the skill setup guide for runtime setup and inspection tools for checks without the GUI.

Develop Celesta

To run from source, use Rust 1.89 or later, Node.js 26, the pnpm version in package.json, and your platform's native build tools. mise.toml pins the Node.js and pnpm versions CI uses. Prepare the FFmpeg 8.1.x development libraries using the source-build guide before running Cargo. The FFmpeg executable alone is insufficient; FFmpeg 9 and later are not supported yet.

git clone https://github.com/mika-f/Celesta.git celesta
cd celesta
pnpm install
pnpm run build:runtime
cargo run -p celesta-editor --release -- packages/cli/examples/title.tsx

pnpm run build:runtime also generates the TypeScript bindings from the Rust types. It regenerates them only when those Rust sources change, so run it again after pulling.

On Linux, clone the repository before preparing FFmpeg so the guide's build script is available. The source of the build guide is also in this repository.

After building the runtime, check the area you changed. Common checks are:

pnpm run test:runtime
pnpm run typecheck:examples
cargo test --workspace --locked

Tests that need a GPU adapter, Node.js, or a color emoji font print a line starting with skipping and pass when it is missing. On a machine with a GPU, set CELESTA_REQUIRE_GPU=1 so a missing adapter fails the GPU tests instead. CI lists the skipped tests in each job's summary.

See the CI workflow for the full checks and platform setup. For rendering changes, include screenshots of the same scene before and after the change.

Repository guide

To build release packages, use the macOS, Windows, or Linux container packaging guide.

Report a problem

Open an issue with your operating system, steps to reproduce the problem, and any error message. If possible, include a small project that reproduces it, along with media you have permission to share.

License

Celesta's own source code is declared under MIT OR Apache-2.0.

The official Windows and macOS binary packages additionally bundle an FFmpeg build with the x264 encoder enabled, which is GPL-2.0-or-later licensed. Distributing that FFmpeg build makes the binary package as a whole subject to GPL-2.0-or-later, in addition to Celesta's own MIT/Apache-2.0 source license. See LICENSE-GPL-2.0 for the license text and packaging/GPL-SOURCE-OFFER.md for the corresponding-source offer that accompanies each release. The same FFmpeg build also links libvpx and libopus (BSD-3-Clause), the WebM encoders. Building Celesta yourself from source, or building it with an LGPL-only FFmpeg configuration, is not affected.