🎬 MCP Adobe Premiere Pro — AI Video Editing Automation

AI meets Premiere Pro. Control your edits with natural language and automate your workflow with Claude or any AI agent, powered by the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

⚠️ Transparency Notice: This project was developed with AI assistance (Claude Sonnet 4.5) as an experimental proof-of-concept. While many features are fully functional, some tools are placeholders awaiting full implementation. See the detailed tool status below.

✨ What is This?

This project is an AI-powered automation bridge for Adobe Premiere Pro. It exposes a set of editing tools (via MCP) so you can:

• 🗣️ Talk to your editor (via Claude or other AI agents)

• ⚡ Automate repetitive tasks

• 🧠 Build smarter, context-aware workflows

Current Status:

• ✅ 50+ fully functional tools tested and working

• ✅ Security hardened with comprehensive input validation

• ✅ 102 unit tests ensuring reliability

• ⚠️ 10 placeholder tools awaiting full implementation

• 🚀 Production-ready core for common editing workflows

Related MCP server: Encoding DevOps MCP Server

🧩 Using with UXP DevTools (Experimental)

You can also use this project as a UXP panel in Premiere Pro (24.4+):

1. Open Adobe UXP DevTools.

2. Click “Add Plugin” and select the uxp-plugin/ folder.

3. Start the panel in DevTools and open it in Premiere Pro via Window > Plugins > MCP Bridge (UXP).

⚠️ Note:

• UXP scripting in Premiere Pro is experimental and limited. Some features (like timeline and sequence editing) may not be available yet.

🛠️ Tool Status (65 Total Tools)

✅ Fully Working Tools (50+ tools)

📁 Project Management

• create_project — Create a new Premiere Pro project

• open_project — Open an existing project file

• save_project — Save the current project

• save_project_as — Save the project with a new name/location

📂 Media Management

• import_media — Import a media file (video, audio, image)

• import_folder — Import all media files from a folder

• create_bin — Create a new bin (folder) in the project panel

🎬 Sequence Management

• create_sequence — Create a new sequence (timeline)

• duplicate_sequence — Duplicate an existing sequence

• delete_sequence — Delete a sequence

⏱️ Timeline Operations

• add_to_timeline — Add a media clip to a sequence timeline

• remove_from_timeline — Remove a clip from the timeline

• move_clip — Move a clip to a different position

• trim_clip — Adjust the in/out points of a clip

• split_clip — Split a clip at a specific time point

• duplicate_clip ✨ — Duplicate a clip on the timeline

• enable_disable_clip ✨ — Enable or disable a clip

• reverse_clip ✨ — Reverse playback direction of a clip

🎨 Effects & Transitions

• apply_effect — Apply a visual or audio effect to a clip

• remove_effect — Remove an effect from a clip

• add_transition — Add a transition between two clips

• add_transition_to_clip — Add a transition to the start or end of a clip

🔊 Audio Operations

• adjust_audio_levels — Adjust the volume of an audio clip

• add_audio_keyframes — Add keyframes to audio levels

• mute_track — Mute or unmute an entire audio track

• link_audio_video ✨ — Link/unlink audio and video components

• apply_audio_effect ✨ — Apply audio effects to clips

🎛️ Color Correction

• color_correct — Apply basic color correction adjustments

• apply_lut — Apply a Look-Up Table (LUT) to a clip

📤 Export & Rendering

• export_sequence — Render and export a sequence to a video file

• export_frame — Export a single frame as an image

• add_to_render_queue ✨ — Add sequence to render queue

🎥 Advanced Features

• create_multicam_sequence — Create a multicamera sequence from multiple video clips

• create_proxy_media — Generate proxy versions of media

• auto_edit_to_music — Automatically edit video to music beats

• stabilize_clip — Apply video stabilization

• speed_change — Change the playback speed of a clip

📍 Markers (NEW ✨)

• add_marker — Add timeline markers for navigation

• delete_marker — Remove markers from timeline

• update_marker — Update marker properties (name, color, comment)

• list_markers — List all markers in a sequence

🎚️ Track Management (NEW ✨)

• add_track — Add new video or audio tracks

• delete_track — Remove tracks from sequence

• rename_track — Rename tracks

• lock_track — Lock/unlock tracks to prevent editing

• toggle_track_visibility — Show/hide video tracks

📊 Project Information

• list_project_items — List all media items, bins, and assets in the project

• list_sequences — List all sequences in the project

• list_sequence_tracks — List all tracks in a sequence

• get_project_info — Get comprehensive project information

• get_sequence_settings ✨ — Get sequence resolution, framerate, etc.

• get_clip_properties ✨ — Get detailed clip information

• get_render_queue_status ✨ — Check render queue status

⚠️ Placeholder Tools (Require Further Implementation)

These tools are defined but return "not yet implemented" errors. They exist as scaffolding for future development:

🔊 Advanced Audio (Placeholders)

• normalize_audio ❌ — Requires external audio analysis

• audio_ducking ❌ — Requires complex keyframe automation

• extract_audio ❌ — Requires export pipeline implementation

🎬 Nested Sequences (Placeholders)

• create_nested_sequence ❌ — Requires selection API implementation

• unnest_sequence ❌ — Not available in Premiere Pro scripting API

✂️ Advanced Editing (Placeholders)

• replace_clip ❌ — Requires complex clip replacement logic

• slip_clip ❌ — Requires precise in/out point manipulation

• slide_clip ❌ — Requires adjacent clip trimming logic

• set_sequence_settings ❌ — Cannot modify sequence settings after creation

• set_clip_properties ❌ — Limited by ExtendScript API

⚠️ What Doesn’t Work (and Why)

❌ Not Supported (Adobe Scripting Limitations)

• add_text_overlay — Text overlays (legacy titles) are deprecated/broken in modern Premiere Pro scripting

• add_shape — Shape/graphics overlays are not supported by Premiere scripting

• Essential Graphics (MOGRTs) — Not scriptable

• Direct pixel manipulation — Not possible

Why? Adobe has removed or deprecated these scripting APIs. Only the features above are reliably scriptable.

🚦 Quick Start

1. Clone and Install

2. Build & Start the MCP Server

3. Install the UXP Plugin in Premiere Pro

1. Open

2. Click "Add Plugin" and select the uxp-plugin/ folder from this repository

3. Click "Load" to enable the plugin

4. Restart Premiere Pro

5. Open the plugin:

   • Go to Window > Extensions > MCP Bridge (UXP)

   • The panel should show "Ready!" if the bridge is running

4. Connect Claude (or another AI agent)

• Configure Claude to use the MCP server as a tool endpoint

• Ask Claude to perform editing tasks (see supported features above)

🐞 Known Issues & Limitations

API Limitations

• Text/graphics overlays do not work — Adobe deprecated legacy title APIs

• Some scripting APIs are buggy or version-dependent — Behavior varies between Premiere versions

• UXP scripting is experimental — Some features limited compared to CEP

• 10 tools are placeholders — See "Placeholder Tools" section above

Implementation Status

• 50+ tools fully functional — Core editing workflows work reliably

• Comprehensive test coverage — 102 unit tests ensure stability

• Security hardened — Input validation, sanitization, and secure temp directories

• Production-ready core — Main features tested and validated

Performance Notes

• File-based communication — Current bridge uses file polling (WebSocket upgrade planned)

• Single-threaded execution — Operations run sequentially

• No caching yet — Repeated queries re-execute (caching layer planned)

🔒 Security Features

This project includes comprehensive security hardening:

• ✅ No code injection vulnerabilities — Removed all eval() usage

• ✅ Input validation — All user inputs sanitized and validated

• ✅ Path traversal protection — File paths validated against allowed directories

• ✅ Secure temp directories — Session-isolated temp folders with restrictive permissions (0o700)

• ✅ Rate limiting — Built-in rate limiter to prevent abuse

• ✅ Audit logging — Security events logged for monitoring

• ✅ Schema validation — Zod schemas enforce type safety on all tool inputs

💡 Why This Project Exists

This project explores how far AI-powered video editing automation can go in Premiere Pro. Built collaboratively with Claude Sonnet 4.5, it demonstrates:

• Automating repetitive editing tasks — Batch operations, consistent workflows

• Building smarter AI workflows — Natural language control of professional video tools

• Exploring Adobe scripting boundaries — Push the limits of what ExtendScript can do

• Production-ready architecture — Security, testing, and error handling from day one

Limitations & Future Directions

For advanced graphics/text overlays, you'll need After Effects scripting, Photoshop automation, or third-party plugins. The roadmap includes:

• WebSocket communication (replacing file-based bridge)

• Caching layer for improved performance

• Authentication and authorization

• Completing the 10 placeholder tools

📚 References

• Adobe Premiere Pro Scripting Guide

• Adobe CEP Resources

🙏 Thanks & Contributions

If you find this useful or want to contribute, feel free to open issues or PRs. Honest feedback and improvements are welcome!