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Desktop beta

Bring the studio home.

Renku runs locally on your computer, close to your screenplay and media. Use it alongside your AI agent: give direction in the agent app and review your film in Studio.

Before you start

What you’ll need

A Mac or Windows PC
macOS 13.5 or newer on Apple silicon or Intel, or Windows 10 (version 1803 or newer) or Windows 11 on x64.
An AI agent app
Renku has no built-in agent. Codex in the ChatGPT app is included with ChatGPT plans, including Free; usage limits depend on the plan. Claude Desktop’s Code tab needs a paid Claude plan (Pro or higher). A terminal agent, or another app that can run local commands and use Renku’s skills, works too. Desktop apps are recommended so you can see images beside the conversation.
Plans checked 15 Oct 2026: OpenAI pricing · Claude pricing
An API key with credit
To generate images, video or voices, add an API key from at least one provider Renku supports: Fal.ai, Pika, Replicate, WaveSpeed, ElevenLabs or World Labs. You pay the provider directly; Renku adds no fee. With Codex, some images can use its built-in image generation instead.

What generation costs

Three real examples

Renku is free. Your provider bills each generation. These are real requests from making our Basilica film, priced at list prices on 15 Oct 2026.

  • Storyboard pass

    No provider charge

    Four Beat frames for one scene in a single image, made with Codex’s built-in image generation (26 Aug 2026).

    Uses your ChatGPT plan’s Codex usage. With Claude or another agent, storyboards use an image provider’s prices.

  • Video take

    $3.34

    15 seconds at 768p with MiniMax H3 Max on Fal.ai, guided by four reference images, a previs video and the dialogue audio (10 Oct 2026).

    $1.20 for the video plus $2.14 for the reference inputs.

  • Voice line

    $0.004

    One line of dialogue, 54 characters, with ElevenLabs Eleven v4 (10 Oct 2026).

    Pay-as-you-go API price.

A retake costs the same again. Prices change, so check your provider. When a provider publishes its prices, Renku shows an estimate before you confirm a generation.

Installation

Three steps to get started

Before installing Renku, the installer asks you to read and accept the Terms of Use. It remembers your answer for updates and asks again only if the terms change. You can also review the Privacy Notice. Renku Studio’s AGPLv3 license and the Skills’ MIT license govern your open-source rights independently.

01

Install Renku

Open Terminal, paste this command, and press Return.

curl -fsSL https://downloads.gorenku.com/install.sh | sh

If Git is missing, setup opens Apple’s Command Line Tools installer. Finish that dialog, then press Return in Terminal to continue.

02

Let setup connect your agent

Setup automatically installs the Renku plugin for Claude and Codex when their CLI or desktop app is available. There is no agent picker. These plugins teach your agent how to work with Renku.

For Claude Desktop, open its Code tab once before running setup. After installation, start a new local Code conversation and invoke /renku:movie-director. Standalone Claude Code is supported too.

Restart the ChatGPT app after setup to load the Codex plugin, then see Codex permissions for the one step Renku can’t do for you: trusting your Project Library in Codex. Renku does not install the agent apps themselves. Using another agent? Follow the separate skills installation guide.

03

Start the studio

Open a new Terminal window and run this command to open Studio in your browser.

Follow the first-run setup. Restart your agent and start a new conversation to load the Renku skills.

renku studio start

Keep this terminal open while using Studio. Run the same command whenever you want to start Renku again.

Up and running?

Make room for your first film.

Connect your providers, create a project, and bring your screenplay into Studio.

Continue to Quick Start

Private by default

Your project stays on your machine.

Studio runs as a local web application. Your project database and media remain in folders you control.

Safe updates

Versioned and verified.

Stop Studio, then run renku update to update Renku and its Claude/Codex plugins. Use renku update skills to refresh those plugins without updating the runtime. Other agents use the separate skills installation guide.

If your installed updater reports a missing bundled skills installer, stop Studio and rerun the installation command above. It downloads the current installer and preserves your projects and settings.

Open development

See how Renku is built.

Browse the source, follow releases, or report an issue on GitHub →