[pallaoro]

None of the 6 clips on Circulate (2026-11-10) got a hook. The hook was rounded out to whole transcript lines and dropped past 6 s. The transcript's lines are 4.2 s median, so a hook line that ran from one transcript line into the next became about 8 s and was thrown away.

The hook is now what an editor means by it: a 3 second cut at the start of the timeline, taken from where the clip's strongest line starts, followed by the moment.

• The model gives hook_start only. It's snapped back to the line's own start when it is within 0.6 s, so the cut never starts mid-word.
• If the moment already opens on that line, there's no hook cut, so nothing plays twice.

The clips proposal also says what it does: it reads the video and makes new videos in this project, and this cut stays as it is. It used to say 'watch a clip … applies as one step you can undo'.

Tests: 307 unit tests (new: a hook line across two transcript lines, the Circulate case) and all e2e pass.

The job strip becomes one inline line

Feedback from Circulate: the 'Made 6 clips' strip above the player took space it didn't need. Inside Clawnify, background work now shows as one short line beside the Videos menu, and only while there is something to say:

• running: a spinner, what it's doing ('Framing 6 videos for 9:16: 2 of 6 stretches read'), Cancel
• needs a yes: 'Run in the background? Run · Not now'
• kept aside: 'Kept aside: the cut changed · Apply anyway · Discard'
• done: '6 new videos' for 8 seconds, then nothing (the videos are in the Videos menu)

Hidden on phones, where the AI button's spinner already shows a job running.

Separate videos, or one video of the moments

'5/6 cut downs, with a strong hook and interesting first 3 seconds' can mean separate videos, each with its own hook, or one video of the moments behind a single hook.

• The planner now asks which, in one sentence (ask_user), when the request doesn't say. When it does ('6 separate reels', 'one 60 second highlight video'), it doesn't ask.
• make_clips { together: true } makes ONE new video in the project: a 3 second hook from the strongest moment (its hook line, or its own opening when it has none, skipped if the video already starts there), then the moments in order, framed, with captions.

Tests: 310 unit tests (3 new for one-video mode) and all e2e pass.