Video editing from Node.js, without FFmpeg on your machine.

What running FFmpeg from Node usually costs

• On Vercel, Netlify or Lambda there is no binary to spawn and no room to ship one, so the whole approach stops before it starts.
• fluent-ffmpeg wraps a process, and the process still needs FFmpeg installed with the right build flags for libass, libx264 or whatever the task needs.
• A render inside a request handler competes with the requests you are meant to be serving.

Trim a clip and wait for the file

const KINOPIPE = 'https://kinopipe.com/api/v1'
const headers = {
  authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.KINOPIPE_API_KEY}`,
  'content-type': 'application/json',
}

async function run(tool, inputs, options = {}) {
  const started = await fetch(`${KINOPIPE}/tools/${tool}`, {
    method: 'POST',
    headers,
    body: JSON.stringify({ inputs, options }),
  })
  if (!started.ok) throw new Error(`${tool} was rejected: ${await started.text()}`)
  const { jobId } = await started.json()

  for (;;) {
    const job = await fetch(`${KINOPIPE}/jobs/${jobId}`, { headers }).then((r) => r.json())
    if (job.status === 'succeeded' || job.status === 'failed') return job
    await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 2000))
  }
}

const job = await run(
  'trim-video',
  [{ id: 'main', url: 'https://example.com/interview.mp4' }],
  { start: 12, end: 48 },
)

if (job.status === 'failed') throw new Error(job.errorMessage ?? 'the job did not finish')
console.log(job.result.output.downloadUrl)

• No dependency: fetch is built in from Node 18, and nothing above needs a package.
• The same code runs in an edge function, because the encode happens elsewhere and the handler only makes HTTP calls.
• Send an Idempotency-Key header when you retry, and the retry returns the original job instead of paying for a second render.

FAQ