Helios Getting Started

Quick installation and setup guide for Helios, a browser-native video engine for programmatic animation and rendering.

Requirements

Before installing Helios, ensure you have:

• Node.js: v18 or higher (recommended)
• npm or yarn package manager
• Chrome/Chromium: Required for rendering (automatically installed by Playwright)

FFmpeg (Automatically Included)

Good news: FFmpeg is automatically bundled with @helios-project/renderer via the @ffmpeg-installer/ffmpeg package. You don't need to install it manually!

The renderer package includes platform-specific FFmpeg binaries that work out of the box. If you prefer to use a system-installed FFmpeg instead, you can specify a custom path via the ffmpegPath option in the renderer configuration.

Installation