This content demonstrates how to leverage Claude Code and HeyGen to automate the creation of "yap style" short-form videos using an AI clone, streamlining content production for platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
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Yap style videos are hitting millions of
views on platforms like Instagram and
TikTok, but what if you didn't have to
film them yourself? In this video, we're
going to use Claude Code to generate yap
style videos for you using your AI
clone. It's going to research your
topic, write the script, and create your
AI avatar using HeyGen. And if we
haven't met yet, my name is Duncan
Rogoff. I'm a former art director for
brands like Apple, PlayStation, and
Nissan, and I now run one of the top
communities for learning Claude Code and
building income. If you want to follow
along, we're going to build everything
step by step, so focus in, close all
your open tabs, and let's build. If you
want to get access to the skill we build
today, just check the link in the
description. So, the first thing I'm
going to do is I'm just going to come
into the Claude desktop app and make
sure we're inside of Claude Code. Next,
all you need to do is create a brand new
folder for us to work in, so I'll just
put one on my desktop and I'll just call
this yap cuz it doesn't really matter,
and we'll open this up. I'm also going
to use the model Opus 4.8 for this
because it's a more complex task that
requires a little bit more power, but
you might be able to get away with
Sonnet, but let's stick with Opus. So,
the first thing we need to do is to
figure out like what actually makes a
good yap style video, and so we will
just have Claude do the research for us.
I need to figure out what makes a good
yap style short-form video for Instagram
Reels. I need to figure out what format
the script should take, what hooks are
popular, what kind of topics or content
resonate, and really what goes viral.
Please do some deep research for me. So,
today we're just going to be building
this skill from the ground up, and the
beauty of working with a system like
Claude Code is there's no use waiting
around while we could be doing some
other things. So, what we can do is we
can already start building out our AI
avatar while Claude does our research.
And so, in order to do this, we want to
come over to a site called HeyGen, and
while they are the sponsor of this
video, they are the industry standard
for AI avatars or digital clones. The
product is super easy to use, the
results are insane, and they connect
super easily with Claude Code. So, once
you create your account, all you you to
do is come into avatar. So, I already
have an avatar that I've been working
from, but if you want to start from
scratch, just come up to the top here
and click new avatar. You can create a
virtual character just by uploading an
image or designing with AI, or you can
clone a real person by recording your
webcam or uploading a video clip you
have. So, first thing I'm going to do is
I'm just going to take a selfie.
So, I just took this photo of myself and
it's good enough for today. But, if you
wanted to make it better, you could
really quickly come into something like
Google AI Studio. You could upload the
photo of yourself. Make sure you're
using Nano Banana 2, and you could say
something like, "Please make this look
like I'm a professional in a YouTube
studio." And then, I'm just going to go
ahead and change the aspect ratio to 9
by 16, which is vertical, which is
perfect for shorts, and the resolution,
let's set this up high to make sure we
have good quality images. So, this is
the image that we created. I think it's
just okay, honestly, but with a little
bit more work on the prompting, I think
you could get what you wanted. I'm going
to use the original image cuz I actually
kind of liked it. So, I'm going to come
back into my avatar here. Go ahead and
click in and I'm just going to upload a
look. HeyGen actually prefers a JPEG or
a PNG, so I'm just going to open this up
in preview. Come over here, file, go to export.
export.
Save this as a JPEG in my downloads
folder. The name doesn't really matter.
Click upload. Upload my photo now and we
have this already to go. I'm just going
to go ahead and click create look. And
to make sure that we are all ready to
go, what we want to do is you want to
connect the HeyGen MCP up to Cloud Code.
So, you can just come over to developers.heygen.com,
developers.heygen.com,
click into the MCP key tab, and what you
want to do is you just want to copy this
link right here. So, I'm going to click
copy, come back into Cloud Code while
this is doing the research for us. Click
the plus down at the bottom here.
You can go into connectors and manage connectors.
connectors.
And then, at the top, click the plus one
more time. Add a custom connector and
I'm just going to name this HeyGen.
Paste in the URL here and click add. You
can see this is all ready to go and And
just says you're not connected to HeyGen
yet. All you have to do is click connect
when you're logged into your account.
It's going to just ask you to give
Claude code access to HeyGen. I'm going
to click yes, go ahead, and now Claude
code is all connected to HeyGen and we
are ready to use Claude to create our
digital twin. So, you can see that we
have HeyGen over here. So, these are all
the permissions that HeyGen has access
to and I'm just going to switch these to
always allow so I don't need to approve
everything every time. And I'm just
going to do the same down here. We are
all good to go. And so, the last thing
to check to make sure that you're a good
is you just click the plus. If you come
into connectors and you can see that we
have HeyGen right here toggled on, that
means we're all connected. And so, this
is why Claude code is so powerful. You
can see right here that deep research is
going and it's actually spawned 33
different agents for us to research the
app style videos. So, we can open this
up and we can see all of the different
agents that are running, all of the
searches that it's performing. You can
also see the token usage and how long
things are taking. So, this just
finished. It took about 10 minutes and
it did a lot of research for us. It went
through 26 sources and organized
everything for me around the four
questions that I asked. Here's what it
discovered about writing viral hooks.
Here's how it thinks we should pick
topics to create content that resonates.
So, engineer for the action you want,
not for likes. So, engineer something
for savable content or shareable content
or story time or like a rant, right?
Here's some of the virality mechanics
and here's actually a template that we
can use to base everything on. So, this
is a very good start. So, what do we
need to do from here? Well, first, I
want to save this research. We did a lot
of work, we spent a bunch of tokens, we
might as well save it so if we ever need
it for anything else, we have it. The
first thing I want to do is I want you
to just save this research in our folder
so that I have it for later. While it's
doing that, the next thing we want to do
is you want to start thinking about
creating the skill. A skill is basically
just a reusable set of instructions that
Claude code can follow to get consistent
results every single time. So, if we're
going to be creating a lot of these app
style videos, we want to make sure we
can do it from a single command. And
what's cool is we already have all of
the pieces that we need. We understand
what makes a strong hook. We understand
the format that works for a yap style
video. We understand the script, and we
have our HeyGen avatar all ready to go.
So, this is cool. It just went ahead and
saved this research for us. If we ever
need to reference it later, we have it.
So, let's ask it to build the skill for
us. Based off of all of this research,
we need to create a skill for yap style
videos. Basically, the skill needs to
research some topics that are trending
in my niche right now. It needs to draft
a yap style script including a viral
hook and the proven format that works.
This needs to be engineered for
engagement and virality, and then it
actually needs to use HeyGen to create
an avatar speaking that script. Here is
my HeyGen avatar ID and the voice ID.
So, there are two pieces to your HeyGen
avatar. One is the video and one is the
voice. So, the video ID you can get
inside of your avatar. You can just
click these dots. You can say copy the
avatar look ID. I'll come back into
Claude code, and I'll just say, "HeyGen
avatar ID." And I will paste that in.
And then I will say, "HeyGen voice ID."
And you can come into here, and if you
see on the left, we have voices. And you
can choose from this whole list of
voices. These are voices that I've
generated. You have the HeyGen library,
which literally has hundreds of voices
for you to choose from. You can just
listen to a couple of these and pick the
one that you want. If you want to clone
your own voice, so it sounds like you,
just click clone your voice at the top.
You can actually record audio here
directly into HeyGen, or if you have an
audio file ready to go, maybe a clip
that you've already processed to sound
extra good, you can just upload that
file here. I already have my own voice
that I've cloned. It's this professional
one here. I literally fed it 2 hours of
me talking. You can come in here, click
get voice ID, come back into Claude, and
I'm just going to paste that in as well.
So, this is why we connected to HeyGen
earlier to make sure that Claude code
had access to the API to understand how
to actually make our avatar do things.
Says it has everything it needs, it's
building the app scale for us as we
speak. So, this really only took a
couple of minutes and it built a whole
skill for us. So, the first thing it's
going to do, it's going to read
information about my ICP, my offer, and
my brand voice. This system actually
knew to do this. I didn't instruct it.
It's okay if you don't have the stuff,
Claude will figure it out. So, it's
going to read from the hook swipe file
that I have cuz I've been saving viral
hooks over these past couple of weeks so
we can create higher quality content.
So, you could do something similar. Go
to Instagram, find hooks that are
working, write them down somewhere, and
give it to Claude. The next thing it's
going to do, it's going to research any
topics, it's going to scrape the web
across my niche to figure out what
people are talking about. It's going to
pick one single topic scored on DM
shareability, a contrarian angle, and
the pain my ICP is feeling. If I name a
specific topic directly, it's going to
not do any research, it's just going to
use that topic. So, if something is
trending like Anthropic just shut down
Fable, I can just tell it to make a
video about that. Next, it's going to
draft the script for us. It's going to
apply the verified format from the
research, so we know this works. And
then it's going to render the avatar via
HeyGen. It's going to use my avatar and
voice IDs that I gave it. It's going to
be 9 by 16, so vertical format, great
for shorts, and it's actually even going
to burn in the captions for us. It's
going to set the speed to 1.1, so we
talk a little bit faster, so it has a
little bit more energy. And then once
it's done, it's going to return the
video URL and it's going to log
everything for us. It's just asking, "Do
I want to do a live test run now?" Of
course. So, I will just say yes. So, the
system already did some research for me
and wrote a script. And I actually think
this is kind of funny and worth talking
about. So, basically there's a strong
convergence all the reels are saying
right now, "If your 2026 strategy is AI
doing all the heavy lifting, it won't
work." AI makes average branding easier,
but exceptional branding harder. And I
actually do think there is some truth to
this. I do think in a world of AI slop
and where people are increasingly
putting out AI content on the internet,
there is increasingly more room for
people with an authentic presence and
voice to stand out. That being said,
I've been creating a lot of AI content
myself, and people are still engaging
with it. They're still sharing, they're
still liking, they're still commenting,
they're still receiving lead magnets.
So, it really all depends on who your
audience is and the value of the content
that you're creating. So, this is the
script that it wrote. Everyone's using
AI to pump out more content. That's
exactly why they're invisible. Here's
what nobody's saying. So, that's a
really strong opening hook, and I think
this is the core line right here. AI
isn't your content, it's your leverage.
Use it to amplify a real voice, not
replace one. So, if we come back up
here, I think that's why some of these
things like training Claude with your
brand voice or your personal story or
your own philosophy or your beliefs is
actually really impactful. Because now
you don't just have an AI avatar that
sounds and thinks like everyone else,
you have one that's actually true to you
and based off of your personal
experience and beliefs. So, stop asking
AI to write for you, start asking what
you'd say if you stopped copying
everyone. So, it sent the script over to
HeyGen. HeyGen is processing the video,
and we're just waiting to hear back. So,
here's the video the system created. If
you want to start using HeyGen today,
just check the link in the description.
If you want to get access to the skill
already built for you, join the
community. Everyone's using AI to pump
out more content. That's exactly why
they're invisible. Here's what nobody's
saying. The feed is drowning in AI spam.
So, the algorithm stopped rewarding
volume and started rewarding the one
thing AI can't fake, you, your real
opinion, the story only you have lived.
When you use AI to post more, you blend
in. When you use it to say something
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