HeyGen Skills
AI agent skills for creating avatar videos. Your agent gets a face, a voice, and the ability to send video like a message.
Works with Claude Code, OpenClaw, Codex, Cursor, and other AI coding agents.
"Bring yourself to life — create your own avatar and make a 30-second intro video of yourself. Use heygen-avatar and heygen-video, ask me anything before you start."
→ reads your agent's identity files → asks only what's missing → builds the agent's avatar → picks the best style → generates the video → delivers the share link
Install
Paste this into your agent. It does the rest — clones the repo to the right path, asks for your HeyGen API key, picks the best transport, runs a verify test, and ends with a working video.
Read https://raw.githubusercontent.com/heygen-com/skills/master/INSTALL_FOR_AGENTS.md and follow it.
Ask me for any API keys you need.
That's it. The agent fetches INSTALL_FOR_AGENTS.md and walks the rest of the install. Same prompt forever — the install spec lives in the repo, not in your clipboard.
Want to install manually instead? Follow the steps below.
Step 1 — Install the skills
The repo ships two skills, heygen-avatar and heygen-video. Pick the install path that matches your tooling.
Option A: gh skill install (works across Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, Copilot, Junie, Goose, OpenHands, Amp, Cline, OpenCode, Warp, and more — agentskills.io):
gh skill install heygen-com/skills heygen-avatar
gh skill install heygen-com/skills heygen-video
Requires GitHub CLI v2.90+. The CLI writes to the right directory for your agent automatically.
Option B: ClawHub:
clawhub install heygen-skills
Option C: OpenClaw plugin (bundles MCP support):
openclaw plugins install clawhub:@heygen/openclaw-plugin-heygen
Option D: Git clone (legacy path):
| Agent | Install path |
|---|
| Claude Code | ~/.claude/skills/heygen-skills |
| OpenClaw | ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/heygen-skills |
| Other | Clone anywhere your agent loads skills from |
git clone --single-branch --depth 1 https://github.com/heygen-com/skills.git <install-path>/heygen-skills
After cloning, the two skills are auto-discovered at heygen-avatar/SKILL.md and heygen-video/SKILL.md.
Step 2 — Get your HeyGen API key
- Go to app.heygen.com/api (Settings → API)
- Generate a new API key
- Save it somewhere safe — you can't view it again after the modal closes
Step 3 — Install the HeyGen CLI
One-line install (macOS / Linux):
curl -fsSL https://static.heygen.ai/cli/install.sh | bash
Then set your API key:
export HEYGEN_API_KEY=<your-key>
That's ephemeral (current shell only). To persist across sessions, add export HEYGEN_API_KEY=<your-key> to your shell profile (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, or equivalent).
Verify:
heygen --version
heygen auth status
The HeyGen CLI is a single static binary. No runtime deps.
Alternative: MCP (OAuth, no API key)
If you prefer OAuth and already have a HeyGen plan with credits, connect the remote MCP server instead of setting an API key. The skills will auto-detect MCP when no HEYGEN_API_KEY is set.
Claude Code:
claude mcp add --transport http heygen https://mcp.heygen.com/mcp/v1/
OpenClaw: add to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:
{
"mcp": {
"servers": {
"heygen": { "url": "https://mcp.heygen.com/mcp/v1/" }
}
}
}
The first call triggers an OAuth consent flow in your browser.
Priority: If HEYGEN_API_KEY is set, the skills use the CLI. Otherwise they look for MCP tools. Set the key only if you want direct API access; otherwise use MCP.
Step 4 — Create your avatar
Ask the user for a photo (URL or file), then use the heygen-avatar skill:
Create my HeyGen avatar from this photo: [user's photo]
The skill uploads the photo, creates a persistent digital twin with a voice, and saves an AVATAR-<NAME>.md file for future use.
Step 5 — Make your first video
Use the heygen-video skill to generate an intro video with the avatar you just created:
Make a 30-60 second video of me introducing myself, casual tone.
The skill picks up the avatar automatically, writes a script, generates the video, and returns a share link.
That's it. You're set up. The avatar persists — every future video reuses it automatically.
What's Included
Two skills that work standalone or chain together:
| Skill | What it does | Invoke |
|---|
| heygen-avatar | Photo → persistent digital twin (face + voice). Reusable across every video. | /heygen-avatar |
| heygen-video | Idea → script → prompt-engineered video with your avatar delivering the message. | /heygen-video |