Topic / niche → daily news short#

Recurring use case: feed a topic ("AI tools this week", "F1 race results", "crypto headlines") and let Revid fetch live news, summarize it, and produce a short. This is the right skill for automated daily channels.

When to use this skill#

• The user wants a recurring daily short on a topic — they don't have a specific URL.
• They are happy with whatever Revid surfaces from the news for that topic.
• For a known article URL use revid-article-to-short.
• For a custom angle / angle the news doesn't cover use revid-prompt-to-video.

Inputs#

FieldRequiredNotespromptyesThe topic / nicheaspectRationoDefault 9:16``targetDurationnoDefault 45 (s)Cron / schedulingexternalThis skill renders one video; loop externally for daily delivery.

Step-by-step#

1. Build the payload (note: options.fetchNews: true is the magic switch).
2. POST /render.
3. Poll /status.
4. For a daily channel, schedule this in cron / GitHub Actions / Vercel Cron and post the resulting videoUrl to the target social account. Use POST /api/public/v3/publish-now if your Revid account has the relevant socials connected.

API call template#

http

POST /api/public/v3/render
Host: www.revid.ai
Content-Type: application/json
key: $REVID_API_KEY

json

{
  "workflow": "article-to-video",
  "source": {
    "prompt": "{TOPIC_OR_NICHE}"
  },
  "aspectRatio": "9:16",
  "voice":    { "enabled": true, "stability": 0.6, "speed": 1.0, "language": "en-US" },
  "captions": { "enabled": true, "position": "middle", "autoCrop": true },
  "music":    { "enabled": true, "syncWith": "beats", "trackName": "news-upbeat" },
  "media": {
    "type": "stock-video",
    "density": "medium",
    "animation": "soft",
    "quality": "pro",
    "videoModel": "pro",
    "imageModel": "good"
  },
  "options": {
    "fetchNews": true,
    "targetDuration": 45,
    "summarizationPreference": "summarize",
    "soundEffects": true,
    "hasToGenerateCover": true,
    "coverTextType": "headline"
  },
  "render": { "resolution": "1080p", "frameRate": 30 }
}

options.fetchNews: true tells Revid to crawl fresh news for the prompt instead of using the prompt as the script directly.

Daily automation example#

bash

# crontab — every day at 06:00
0 6 * * *  /opt/revid/daily-news.sh "AI tools this week"

bash

# daily-news.sh
TOPIC="${1:?topic required}"
PID=$(curl -fsS https://www.revid.ai/api/public/v3/render \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "key: $REVID_API_KEY" \
  -d "$(jq -n --arg p "$TOPIC" '{
    workflow:"article-to-video",
    source:{prompt:$p},
    aspectRatio:"9:16",
    voice:{enabled:true,stability:0.6},
    captions:{enabled:true},
    music:{enabled:true,syncWith:"beats"},
    media:{type:"stock-video",density:"medium",quality:"pro",videoModel:"pro"},
    options:{fetchNews:true,targetDuration:45,summarizationPreference:"summarize",hasToGenerateCover:true},
    render:{resolution:"1080p"}
  }')" | jq -r .pid)
# poll → publish via /publish-now or download the videoUrl …

Examples#

• examples/ai-tools-news.json
• examples/run.sh

Failure modes#

SymptomFixNews for niche topic is sparse / off-topicMake the prompt more specific (e.g. "AI coding tools released this week") and consider switching to revid-article-to-short with a hand-picked URL.Same news repeats day-over-dayTrack pid history client-side and add a date phrase to the prompt: "AI tools — week of 2026-04-26".Tone too neutral / dry for the nicheAdd voice.voiceId matching a known persona, and pass source.stylePrompt: "Punchy, opinionated, end with a take."

See also#

• revid-article-to-short for known URLs.
• revid-prompt-to-video for ideas Revid shouldn't research live.