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Section 02

Getting started

1. Install

  1. Download the latest TwelveLabsStudio-<version>.dmg.
  2. Open the DMG and drag TwelveLabs Studio to your Applications folder.
  3. The build is signed and notarized by TwelveLabs, so it opens normally. (If you ever get a Gatekeeper warning on an older build, right-click the app → Open, or run xattr -cr "/Applications/TwelveLabs Studio.app".)

Install FFmpeg

Studio uses FFmpeg for local shot detection and for rendering MP4s on export/publish:

brew install ffmpeg

If FFmpeg isn't found, ingest and search still work, but shot detection and MP4 rendering don't silently skip — those jobs fail and surface as errored jobs in the Job Monitor until you install FFmpeg.

2. Sign in to TwelveLabs Cloud

Studio is gated on sign-in — you'll see the Sign in screen until a session is active.

  1. Click Sign in. Your browser opens the TwelveLabs Cloud hosted login.
  2. Complete sign-in (or create an account).
  3. The browser hands control back to Studio via a twelvelabsstudio:// link and the app unlocks.

Once signed in, Studio fetches an org-wide TwelveLabs API key automatically, so you don't need to paste any API keys to start. (You can still provide your own keys in Settings → AI if you prefer — see Settings & updates.)

Your session persists across launches; returning users skip the sign-in screen.

3. Create your first project

  1. In the sidebar, go to Projects → New Project.
  2. Give it a name, point it at the folder(s) of source footage you want indexed, and optionally fill in Ingestion Hint — a free-form description of what Jockey should extract during ingestion (sent verbatim as enrichment_config.description). That's it — there's no engine choice at this step.
  3. Create it. Studio provisions a TwelveLabs Knowledge Store inline (the Create button is disabled with a "Provisioning Knowledge Store…" spinner while the API call runs). The project then appears in the sidebar with its modules underneath: Library, Stories, Director, Timeline, Publish.
The Local / Jockey engine is picked per Director run on the Direct sheet, not at project creation — see Reasoning engines. Both engines run on the same library and the same Knowledge Store.

4. Add footage

Open the project's Library and drag in video files (or a folder). Studio hashes each file, generates a thumbnail, and — if auto-processing is on (default) — starts detecting shots and computing embeddings so the asset becomes searchable. Watch progress in the Job Monitor.

See Library & semantic search for what happens next.

The sidebar

  • Projects — all your projects; the active one is expanded.
  • Under each project: Library, Stories, Director, Timeline, Publish — in that order. (Entities live inside Library as a view-mode toggle, not as a separate sidebar item.)
  • Pinned at the bottom: Jobs (all JobScheduler-managed work — telemetry stays invisible by design), and your user pill (email + sign-out + Account settings).
  • The Help menu has two items: TwelveLabs Studio Guide (this user guide / portal docs) and Editorial Workshop & Guide (the in-app template lab).