claudeclip

A local MCP server that lets Claude edit videos on your machine, powered by ffmpeg. Works with Claude Cowork, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and any other MCP client, on Windows, macOS, and Linux — ffmpeg is bundled automatically if you don't have it.

Ask things like "trim the first 30 seconds off intro.mp4 and turn the best part into a GIF" — Claude inspects the file, picks the right tools, and writes the results next to your originals.

Tools

Safe by default: tools never overwrite files. Without an explicit output_path, results land next to the input as name_trimmed.mp4, name_clip.gif, etc., and name collisions get a numeric counter.

Related MCP server: videolab-mcp

Requirements

• Node.js 18+

• ffmpeg — required, and installed for you: npm install always fetches ffmpeg/ffprobe binaries for your platform (Windows, macOS Intel/Apple Silicon, Linux), so the server works out of the box. If a system ffmpeg is present it is preferred (newer and faster); the lookup order is FFMPEG_PATH/FFPROBE_PATH env vars → common install locations (incl. ~/ffmpeg, C:\ffmpeg\bin, Homebrew) → PATH → bundled.

Install

Option 1 — npx (easiest)

No download at all — with Node.js 18+ installed, just use npx in your Claude config (first run fetches everything, including ffmpeg):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "claudeclip": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "claudeclip"]
    }
  }
}

Or for Claude Code: claude mcp add claudeclip -- npx -y claudeclip

Option 2 — download a release

Grab the zip for your platform from the latest release, unzip it somewhere permanent, and point your Claude config at dist/index.js inside it (see below). The zip is self-contained — Node.js 18+ is the only requirement, ffmpeg is included.

Option 3 — from source

git clone https://github.com/gulkoa/claudeclip.git
cd claudeclip
npm install
npm run build

Connect to Claude

Claude Cowork / Claude Desktop

Add the server to your Claude config file:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "claudeclip": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/claudeclip/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Restart the Claude app; the tools appear under the claudeclip server. (If node isn't found, use the full path to the Node executable as command.)

Claude Code

claude mcp add claudeclip -- node /absolute/path/to/claudeclip/dist/index.js

Example prompts

• "How long is C:\Videos\demo.mp4 and what resolution is it?"

• "Cut talk.mp4 from 12:30 to 14:00 and compress the result to about 25 MB"

• "Join these three clips and add my logo.png as a watermark in the bottom right"

• "Make a 5-second GIF of the goal at 1:23, 480px wide"

• "Replace the audio in timelapse.mp4 with song.mp3, looped to fit"

• "Burn episode1.srt into the video and caption the intro with the show title"

• "Look at what's in raw.mp4, then cut it into separate scenes"

• "Remove the dead air from this recording and normalize the audio"

• "Put screen.mp4 and webcam.mp4 side by side" / "webcam in the corner"

• "Pixelate the license plate at the top right from 0:12 to 0:31"

Notes

• Text overlays render with a system font (Arial/Segoe UI on Windows, Helvetica on macOS, DejaVu on Linux). Arbitrary text is safe — it's passed to ffmpeg via a temp file, so quotes, %, : and friends can't break the filter graph.

• Encoding defaults favor compatibility: H.264 + AAC in mp4 with +faststart, VP9 + Opus for webm.

• Long jobs time out after 15 minutes.

Development

npm run build          # compile TypeScript to dist/
node test/smoke.mjs    # end-to-end test: spawns the server over stdio,
                       # generates test media with ffmpeg, exercises every tool

License

MIT