Should a Shorts season use sume/auto or a pinned video model?

Pin one model for a season. sume/auto lets Sume select the model for each request, which is convenient and not a promise that episode 5 looks like episode 4.

Use auto for pilots, tests and one-off promos, and a named model for anything a viewer will watch in order.

What the docs say

The Videos docs list model as either a model id such as seedance-2.5 or sume/auto. Limits differ by model: Wan 3.0 takes 2 to 30 seconds, Seedance 2.5 takes 4 to 30, Omni Flash takes 3 to 10. A request that works on one model can be rejected on another, which is a second reason to pin.

The catalog route GET /v1/catalog lists the supported resolutions, aspect ratios and durations for each model before you submit.

A pin that stays pinned

Write the model id in one config file for the whole season and read it from there in every request. When a new model arrives, start a new season on it instead of swapping mid-way.

Pinning also makes costs predictable: one rate, one duration range. See references for what carries the look and no seed for why a model swap cannot be undone by a number.

• One model id per season.
• Test a new model on a spin-off first.
• Record the model id on every episode record.

Recording the pin

Add the model id to the filename or the metadata of every episode. A year from now, you will want to know which episodes came from which model, especially if one is retired from the catalog.

If a pinned model is retired, finish the season on the replacement and note the break; do not pretend the look is continuous.