AE Agent Lab

AE Agent Lab is an experimental local bridge between a Codex chat and Adobe After Effects. Codex uses MCP tools to inspect a project, make a scoped edit, and render frames for review. The bridge runs on your Mac. There is no After Effects panel or separate chat app.

The public alpha is v0.1.0-alpha.2. Start with the included Warm Glow demo. The documented native proof covers one Mac running After Effects 2026 (26.5); other setups and projects need their own validation.

Native rendered example from the included editable After Effects project. A motion preview is also included.

What you need

• macOS with After Effects 2026 installed.

• Node.js 24 or newer and Codex CLI installed and configured.

• In After Effects, enable Preferences → Scripting & Expressions → Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network. macOS may ask for Automation access.

Download the complete source ZIP from the alpha release, unpack it in a stable folder, and keep that folder in place while using the demo.

Related MCP server: after-effects-mcp-enhanced

Start the demo

Double-click Start Demo.command in the unpacked folder. It installs the locked local dependencies if needed, builds the MCP server, connects it to Codex as ae-agent-lab-demo, and starts a named After Effects worker with a fresh copy of the included project. Keep its Terminal window open. When it says the session is ready, open a new Codex chat and paste the prompt printed there. The prompt contains the exact worker and project paths for your session.

Codex should inspect that copied project before changing it. Ask for one small edit, then have Codex read the changed property back and render frames for you to inspect. The Italian beginner guide walks through a first Exposure timing edit.

When finished, double-click Stop Demo.command. It saves the project copy and stops the named worker. Your run files remain under demo/runs/.

The equivalent Terminal commands are:

npm ci --ignore-scripts
npm run build
npm run connect:codex
npm run demo:start
npm run demo:status
npm run demo:stop

npm run demo:agent runs the included Warm Glow prompt through Codex CLI and saves a transcript. The normal Codex chat uses the prompt printed by demo:start.

Scope and next steps

The included project and rendered proof demonstrate a native edit and visual check on the tested Mac. The source is distributed as a GitHub ZIP, not an npm package. Trying your own saved .aep is experimental: npm run demo:start -- --project /absolute/path/to/project.aep opens a copy, but linked media, fonts, and plugins are not bundled. See the session guide.

• Quickstart and connection help

• First tester tasks and feedback

• Example prompts and agent workflow

• Disconnect and uninstall

The runtime derives from the MIT-licensed kumo.productions MCP After Effects project. Its copyright and license notices are retained in LICENSE.