Manual Mode Guide

Pause at generation checkpoints to review or refine artifacts before continuing — auto for vibe, manual for precise output.

Agnes Video Generator now offers a Manual Mode: the default Auto Mode runs the whole pipeline in one pass, great for "give me a rough idea and vibe-generate". Manual Mode pauses at the checkpoints you choose, letting you confirm, modify or regenerate intermediate artifacts before continuing — ideal for creative work with a clear target output, and you can hand artifacts to stronger external AI or other tools to enhance the result.

Auto Mode vs Manual Mode

Both modes share the same pipeline — the only difference is whether you stop to inspect along the way:

Auto Mode

vibe video generating

Enter a creative idea and the whole pipeline runs in one pass: storyboard → references → video clips → narration → subtitles → final cut, with no intervention.

  • Best for vibe video generating from a rough idea
  • Zero manual work, one-click output
  • Some randomness in results — great for exploring ideas

Manual Mode

precise output

Pause at checkpoints to confirm or refine each artifact before continuing. Tune the storyboard, polish the narration, fix subtitles, refine clips — or hand artifacts to stronger external AI or tools and feed the result back in.

  • Best for clearly specified output expectations
  • Every stage can be previewed, modified or regenerated
  • Works with stronger external AI / ffmpeg / PIL tools

Where Manual Mode pauses

Pause points differ by task type: creative long videos support fine-grained checkpoints — every stage that produces an artifact can pause; manuscript, poetry and talking-head tasks use the standard checkpoints. Tick the points you want when creating a task:

Fine-grained checkpoints (Creative)

  1. 1

    Image analysis

    Analyze reference and end-frame images

  2. 2

    Story

    Generate the story plot

  3. 3

    Script

    Generate the storyboard script and narration

  4. 4

    Character reference

    Generate the character reference image

  5. 5

    End-frame prompts

    Generate end-frame prompts for each scene

  6. 6

    End-frame images

    Pre-generate end-frame images

  7. 7

    Video clips

    Preview and refine each scene’s video clip

  8. 8

    Narration

    Listen to the voice-over; polish the script before re-synthesis

  9. 9

    Subtitles

    Check subtitle timing and line breaks

  10. 10

    Final cut

    Confirm the final composited video

Standard checkpoints (Manuscript / Poetry / Talking-head)

  1. 1

    Storyboard

    Review or refine the script, visual descriptions and narration text

  2. 2

    References

    Check the character reference image (talking-head)

  3. 3

    Video clips

    Preview and refine each scene’s video clip

  4. 4

    Narration

    Listen to the voice-over; polish the script before re-synthesis

  5. 5

    Subtitles

    Check subtitle timing and line breaks

  6. 6

    Final cut

    Confirm the final composited video

Default pause points

Default pause points are pre-filled by task type when creating a task (add or remove any; unchecked ones pass automatically):

  • Creative: story, script, character reference, video clips, subtitles
  • Manuscript / Poetry: storyboard, video clips, subtitles
  • Talking-head: storyboard, video clips

Where manual mode is not supported

Simple (single-shot) text-to-video and simple image types do not support manual mode (artifacts are only listed after completion).

Four ways to handle an artifact

When paused at a checkpoint, pick any one way to handle the current artifact:

🤖 AI modify for me

Type a change request (e.g. "make scene 2 more cinematic"), the system modifies it via model, review the diff and apply.

✏️ Edit myself

Copy the artifact path, edit it locally (JSON / subtitles / images / video), then click "modified, continue".

🤝 External Agent

Copy the collaboration prompt to a stronger local Agent (e.g. opencode / CodeBuddy CLI), then feed the result back and continue.

More free AI tools

💻 Online editor

Edit text artifacts (script / narration / subtitles) directly in an in-page editor, compare with the original anytime, save and continue.

Only affected steps re-run

After a modification, the system re-runs precisely by the artifact-level dependency graph: editing narration re-runs only audio/subtitles/final; editing visual descriptions re-runs only references/videos/final. Unaffected artifacts are kept as-is.

Switch anytime while running

An auto task can switch to manual in one click (pauses at the next safe point); a paused manual task can switch back to auto (clears pause points and runs to completion immediately).

How to choose: auto or manual?

There is no single right answer — pick what fits:

  • Quick output & exploring ideas → Auto Mode, vibe video generating
  • Clear visual / style / voice expectations → Manual Mode, fine-tune each artifact
  • Want output beyond the model default → Manual Mode + stronger external AI or tools

Start creating

The online Demo uses Auto Mode; Manual Mode is a desktop feature — download and choose "Manual" when creating a task to experience checkpoint pauses.

Related Pages

Project & Documentation Basis

The checkpoint and smart-re-run mechanics described here follow the project's official repository and API documentation.

  1. agnes-video-generator — 开源 AI 视频生成项目lcy362 · GitHub (2026)

    The manual/auto mode implementation and usage follow the open-source repo's README and source code.

  2. Agnes AI Open API — 视频 / 图片生成接口Agnes AI · apihub.agnes-ai.com (2026)

    The generation endpoints behind each checkpoint (video/image/narration/subtitles) are specified in the Agnes Open API docs.

  3. opencode — 开源 AI 编程助手SST / opencode 社区 · opencode.ai (2025)

    opencode, recommended for the external-agent channel, is open source; its capabilities follow its official docs.

Why you can trust this

Written by a practicing developer and cross-checked against authoritative primary sources such as arXiv papers, vendor technical reports, and the Stanford AI Index.

S

SandGrid@lcy362

Author of Agnes Video Generator · Full-stack Developer

Independent developer and author of Agnes Video Generator, an open-source (MIT) AI video generation tool built on Agnes AI's free video models. Has helped 1,000+ creators produce AI videos at zero cost. Focused on making video generation models accessible and production-ready; content is based on hands-on practice and primary research.

View on GitHub

Last updated2026-08-21

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