What can I do with the CLI?

You can draft video scripts from a topic, URL, or your own script; generate videos, images, and text-to-speech; start recurring video series; browse your videos, voices, and music; check your credit balance and publishing connections; and manage lifecycle webhooks.

Does it cost credits to use?

Generating media — videos, images, and speech — costs credits, while reads like checking your balance, listing videos, or browsing voices are free. Run the credits command to see your current balance.

Can I use the CLI in scripts and automation?

Yes. The CLI is JSON-first, and every command can emit structured JSON with the --json flag, so output slots cleanly into scripts, pipelines, and other tooling.

What do I need to get started?

Install the @shortgenius/cli package to get the shortgenius binary, then log in with your ShortGenius API key. From there you can run commands like credits, videos draft/list/get, audio speak, and webhooks create/list/verify.

ShortGenius CLI

Drive ShortGenius from your terminal

Install the ShortGenius CLI and draft scripts, render videos, generate images and speech, start recurring series, and manage your account — all from the command line, with JSON output on every command.

Set up in 2 minutes All integrations

What is CLI?

The ShortGenius CLI (@shortgenius/cli, binary shortgenius) is a JSON-first command line over the ShortGenius API. You log in once with an API key and run commands to draft scripts, generate videos, images, and text-to-speech, start scheduled recurring series, and manage your library — without leaving your terminal. Every command can emit structured JSON with --json, so it slots cleanly into scripts, pipelines, and automation.

What you can do with CLI

Once CLI is connected, you can drive ShortGenius with plain-language prompts.

Draft video scripts from a topic, a URL, or your own script

Generate videos, images, and text-to-speech on demand

Start scheduled recurring video series

Browse your videos, voices, and music

Check your credit balance and publishing connections

Subscribe to lifecycle webhooks and verify their signatures

Get started with the CLI

Authenticate once, then script every endpoint.

1
Install the CLI
Install globally, or run it ad-hoc with npx.
```
npm install -g @shortgenius/cli
```
2
Log in
Authenticate with a key from https://shortgenius.com/developers/keys. It's saved to ~/.shortgenius/config.json.
```
shortgenius login --api-key sg-YOURKEY
```
3
Run a command
Check your balance or draft a video. Add --json for machine-readable output.
```
shortgenius credits
shortgenius videos draft --topic "The history of coffee" --duration 60
```

Manage webhooks

Create and verify webhook endpoints from the terminal.

shortgenius webhooks create --url https://example.com/hooks --events "video.completed,image.completed"

Frequently Asked Questions

You log in once with a ShortGenius API key, which is stored in ~/.shortgenius/config.json. After that, every command authenticates automatically using that key.

More ways to connect

ShortGenius speaks MCP, REST, and webhooks.

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