What’s new in Lua

Publishing, ideas and your own style

Built and running in the founder’s copy of Lua. These come to everyone in the next public update.

• A Publish screen: Lua writes the title, the Instagram caption in your voice, the hashtags and the first comment. You pick from three covers, choose a time (or take the next free slot) and press Approve.
• Lua can learn how you write from your own Instagram posts.
• Every video shows where it stands: Editing, Ready, Scheduled, Posted or Failed. Projects open on the videos you are still editing.
• Instagram posts that took a long time to process no longer end up marked “unknown”. Lua checks with Instagram and shows Posted with a link, or Failed with Retry.
• Ideas: a notebook for videos you haven’t made yet, with a script for each one.
• A five-step setup that asks about your goal, your niche, your language and the creators you follow.
• Teach a style: show Lua reels you love and it learns their look.
• Add a clip you forgot to upload anywhere in the video, without starting again.

A steadier Lua, and the editor always opens

Lua 0.1.9 is the current public download.

• A “Starting Lua…” window appears straight away. If something is wrong at launch you get Retry, Send diagnostics or Quit, never a blank editor.
• Lua offers to move itself into Applications when you open it from Downloads.
• If transcription is unavailable (offline, out of credits, or the service is busy), the editor still opens on your takes with a “Try again” button.
• Transcription retries for about two minutes on a bad connection and picks up where it stopped.
• Caption pickers show the four styles: Ember, Ember Classic, Ephaphra and Halo. Old projects keep the style they had.
• Cancel export really stops the render and takes you back to the settings.
• Drag files from Finder straight onto the timeline. Music you import lands on the Music lane.
• Colour-grade any picture: b-roll, images and clips you lifted onto their own track.
• Every file in the media panel shows its real picture, and videos scrub when you hover.
• When you connect Instagram, you confirm the connection inside Lua.
• Lua needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later on a Mac with Apple silicon.

Watch your reel being built, and fix the cut

• After you press Next, the editor opens on your takes straight away. A “Building your video” card in the AI chat shows each step (transcript, raw cut, captions, b-roll, export) as it finishes.
• Words the raw cut removed stay in the transcript, struck through. Click one to bring it back.
• Picked the wrong take? Swap it from the clip’s Takes list, and the b-roll on that line moves with it.
• After you restore words, “Update captions” captions only the new lines.
• A Colour tab: grade the selected clip, every clip from the same take, or the whole video.
• An Audio tab: a mixer with one fader per track and a master.
• Ask the AI chat to find b-roll for one moment. You see it working and can stop it.

B-roll from the real product, and freer editing

• B-roll is recorded from the product’s own website and official videos, at the moment you mention it, with up to three alternatives for each shot.
• A new caption style: Ember Classic.
• Pay for the AI with your own ChatGPT plan by signing in with ChatGPT. If it runs out, Lua asks before it uses your Lua credits.
• Each clip has its own captions. Move a clip and its captions move with it, or unlink them and move them on their own.
• Place a clip anywhere on the timeline; the space it left stays as a gap.
• Move a clip’s sound earlier or later than its picture.
• Three colour looks to start from: Royal, Clean Bright and Warm Gold.

An AI chat inside the editor

• Ask AI answers questions about your video and can look at its frames.
• Edit AI makes the change for you, as ordinary edits on the timeline. You see each step, and ⌘Z undoes it.
• Logo reveals: a product’s logo can open its moment as a small animation made of normal layers you can edit.
• Instagram posting and Comments & DMs rules run on Lua’s own servers, so scheduled posts go out even when your Mac is asleep.

Lua for Mac

The first build of Lua as a Mac app.

• Sign in with Google or with a code sent to your email.
• Lua updates itself in the background, and never restarts in the middle of an export.
• Connect Instagram, then post a reel now or schedule it.
• Comments & DMs: choose a keyword, and when someone comments it, Lua replies in public and sends your link by DM from your account. These are rules you write, not AI replies.
• Analytics: followers, reach, views for each post, your best and worst posts, and the hours your audience is around.