Probe a 30-second AI clip before joining it: video inspect, no stills

Call POST /v1/video-inspect with frames: false on the finished clip. Per Sume's docs that is a probe-only request: no stills are produced and the probe is unbilled. Print the returned probe object and compare it with what you ordered before the clip goes into a Timeline join.

A 30-second request is the length where a mismatch costs the most, so a free check is worth a few lines. Facts here are from the video inspect doc, read 2026-10-02.

What does the probe call need?

A video_url that is a media.sume.com artifact or asset in your workspace, plus an Idempotency-Key header. There is no open-internet fetch, so import outside footage first with POST /v1/media-imports. The default mode is sync and waits up to 30 seconds, then answers 200 with the result or 202 with a job to poll.

import os
import requests

clip = os.environ["CLIP_URL"]  # a media.sume.com url you own
response = requests.post(
    "https://api.sume.com/v1/video-inspect",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['SUME_API_KEY']}",
        "Idempotency-Key": "probe-clip-001",
    },
    json={"video_url": clip, "frames": False},
    timeout=60,
)
response.raise_for_status()
print(response.status_code)
print(response.json())

What is billed and what is not?

Probe and stills are unbilled. Only transcribe: true reserves, at the STT rate in the doc, so leave it off for a length check.

What should I compare?

Read the keys in the returned probe and compare duration, size and whether it has audio with your order. The doc names probe.has_audio as the check for a silent clip. Print the whole object once, because this page does not list every probe key.

What if the clip is not what I ordered?

Do not join it. Resubmit with a new Idempotency-Key, since a replayed key returns the original job. Source clips must be 1800 seconds or shorter for inspect, which is well above any generation length.