Cosmos Documentation
Cosmos is a provenance-first video normalization toolkit.
It is designed to be safe for both humans and automation:
- one CLI (
cosmos) - one SDK (
cosmos.sdk.*) - deterministic provenance artifacts for every real output
What Cosmos is (and is not)
Cosmos is currently strongest in two areas:
- COSM-native ingest: manifest-aware conversion from camera export layouts to normalized MP4 clips.
- General MP4 post-processing: crop, preview, optimize, and provenance operations that work on standard MP4 inputs.
Cosmos is not limited to a single camera vendor at the architecture level. The long-term model is:
- many ingest adapters
- one normalized runtime contract
- one provenance model
Start with the workflow you need
Ingest raw camera output into MP4 clips
- Read: Ingest User Guide
- Validate source layout: Input Structure
- Command reference: cosmos CLI
Create square/rect views and visual QA previews
- Read: Crop User Guide
- Commands: cosmos CLI
- Preview output contracts: Provenance
Optimize existing MP4s for web delivery
Use cosmos optimize run when you need faststart relocation,
optional transcode transforms, and reproducible optimize provenance.
- Command details: cosmos CLI
- Encoder fallback policy: Encoder Behavior
Command quickstart
cosmos --help
cosmos ingest run --help
cosmos crop run --help
cosmos optimize run --help
cosmos crop preview --help
cosmos provenance --help
Provenance is a first-class contract
Cosmos writes run-level and artifact-level JSON sidecars so downstream systems can audit exactly how each file was produced.
- Overview and join keys: Provenance
- Schemas: see the Reference section below
Agent-friendly usage (Cosmos skill)
The canonical Cosmos skill package is versioned in-repo and should be used when planning or shipping CLI/SDK/provenance changes.
- Skill entrypoint:
skills/cosmos/SKILL.md - API surface reference:
skills/cosmos/references/api-surfaces.md - Maintenance ritual:
skills/cosmos/references/maintenance-ritual.md
For a docs-local summary, see Cosmos Skill.
Reference map
- CLI reference: cosmos CLI
- SDK API entry points: SDK
- Platform encoder behavior: Encoder Behavior
- Schemas:
- ingest_run.v1.json
- clip.v1.json
- crop_run.v1.json
- view.v1.json
- optimize_run.v1.json
- optimized.v1.json
- crop_preview_run.v1.json
- crop_preview_plan.v1.json