Trim pauses and reorder clips by API, like YouTube chat editing

YouTube describes a conversational editor in Shorts and the YouTube Create app that can automatically trim pauses and reorder for better pacing. Sume has no chat editor for YouTube, but the same edit is three API calls: probe the clip with video_inspect, cut the keepers with video_trim, and reorder them as video[] slots in a Timeline spec.

Steps are from the Sume docs for Video inspect, Video trim and Timeline 1.0, read 2026-10-01.

What does each step do?

How do I find the pauses?

Inspect returns probe facts, stills, and optional speech-to-text; it does not return typed scenes or pause marks. So you decide the ranges from the transcript and stills, or from your own analysis, and treat them as trim inputs. The worked version is remove filler words with inspect and trim.

How do I reorder segments?

Each trimmed MP4 goes into video[] with source_in 0. Order is set by start: video[0].start must be 0 and later starts must increase. A reorder means rewriting the starts so they stay increasing for the new order. If starts do not increase, or a slot overlaps past its transition, the render is refused with invalid_segment_timing or segment_overlap.

What about the audio?

Timeline needs an audio spine whose duration_seconds sets the output length, or audio.mode: "silence". Reordered speech therefore needs a spine that matches the new order, for example sliced parts in audio.parts[]. Check cost first with the unbilled plan call, then render.