Contributing

Building on the codebase? This page is for you. Shipping videos via the public API? Start at the Introduction.

Before you start

Open or claim an issue before large changes.
One problem per PR. Small diffs get merged faster.
Never commit .env or real API keys.

Repo layout

tree

manim-vid/
  client/          # Next.js — UI, docs, settings, Better Auth, Prisma
  main.py          # FastAPI video worker (VPS)
  worker.py        # generation pipeline
  prompts/         # live LLM prompts
  remotion-src/    # Remotion compositions
  schema/          # Pydantic models (VideoRequest, etc.)

Web and worker are separate deploys. Vercel Root Directory = client. Python stays on a GPU/CPU box that can render.

Web app (client/)

setup

cd client
bun install
cp .env.example .env
bunx prisma generate && bunx prisma db push
bun run dev

Docs: app/docs/
Prisma: prisma/schema.prisma
Deploy notes: client/DEPLOY.md

Video worker

worker

uv sync
uv run uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000
# client/.env → NEXT_PUBLIC_CHALKBOARD_API_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8000

Pull requests

Say what broke and how you tested (UI path or curl).
Match existing style — no drive-by renames.
Prisma changes → run db push and mention it in the PR.

Don’ts

Don’t paste real secrets into docs examples.
Don’t couple Next to local Python paths for production.
Don’t expand docs into marketing fluff — keep them useful.