Higgsfield local application MCPs

Independent local MCP packages for After Effects (repository root) and Blender. Each package has its own dependencies, build, tests and release.

Development packages for Photoshop, Premiere and Illustrator are also available. Each runs independently; shared build sources and validation scope live in adobe/. These private development packages have passed native macOS acceptance on the versions documented in their READMEs. They are not published; Windows and production distribution remain unverified.

After Effects

Local control of Adobe After Effects, with offline creative skills adapted from the FNF bridge. Based on the MIT-licensed mcp-aftereffects runtime; see attribution.

Codex / desktop MCP client → local stdio server → OS scripting → After Effects
                                  ↓                    ↕
                            bundled AE skills     local file mailbox

No Higgsfield account, cloud relay or installed AE panel is required. Adobe licensing, an installed AE application, OS Automation permissions and AE's scripting file access preference are separate requirements. The root integration controls AE; the separate blender/ package controls a dedicated background Blender process over stdin/stdout pipes. A remote web client cannot directly launch a local stdio process.

Related MCP server: ae-mcp

Repository layout

• Root: the local After Effects MCP runtime, tests and setup CLI.

• blender/: the independent fnf-blender-mcp package, background Python runner, CLI, skills and tests.

• skills/: the single source of editable skills; the After Effects package bundles only skills/after-effects/.

• scripts/: skill installation, manifest generation and validation.

• creative-skills/archive/bridge-ae/: original bridge knowledge retained for migration review.

Both original Git histories are retained. After Effects and Blender run as separate MCP servers; neither package requires the other. Root npm commands apply to After Effects. Run Blender commands from blender/.

Setup

Requires Node 24+, macOS or Windows and After Effects (the upstream defaults probe 2024–2026).

npm ci --ignore-scripts
npm run build
node dist/cli.js doctor
node dist/cli.js install-codex

doctor inspects installation and verifies the bundled skills without launching AE. install-codex registers absolute paths under higgsfield-use-after-effects and refuses to overwrite a conflicting configuration. Refresh the MCP connection in your client after registration. Keep this checkout at its registered path. To remove only this registration: codex mcp remove higgsfield-use-after-effects.

When replacing an existing fnf-after-effects registration, review it with codex mcp get fnf-after-effects, remove the old entry with codex mcp remove fnf-after-effects, then rerun the installer.

For another desktop MCP client, node dist/cli.js config prints a JSON configuration using the current Node and server paths. For nonstandard AE installs, set AE_MCP_EXE in the MCP server environment. On macOS, allow the relevant host app's Automation request when first connecting. Enable AE's Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network preference if AE reports file access denied.

For the discoverable entry skill, run python3 scripts/install-skill.py from this checkout. Its companion skills come from this server and need no separate global installation.

First calls

1. ae_get_skill({}): offline skill index.

2. ae_get_skill({"name":"ae-clean-rig"}): construction and verification workflow.

3. ae_get_skill({"name":"ae-clean-rig","reference":"references/07-sliders.md"}): load one focused module. If an After Effects skill ships files, it lists them under files; ae_get_skill_asset returns a verified path on the local MCP host, not file content.

4. ae_project_info({}): verify the real AE connection and inspect current work.

5. ae_catalog({}), then ae_catalog({"category":"layer"}): discover exact operation parameters.

6. ae_do({"operation":"layer.create_text","args":{"comp":"Main","text":"Hello","name":"Title"}}): edit an existing named comp when requested.

The 12 tools are documented in TOOLS.md. The native operation registry is available through ae_catalog; it includes compositions, text, shapes, properties, keyframes, effects, cameras and project operations. Discover the actual policy-filtered catalog rather than assuming every operation is enabled.

Project behavior

Preserve unsaved work. Inspect before editing and render representative frames for visual proof. batch.run groups operations for undo but does not roll back automatically on failure. A consumed request that times out may have executed: inspect before retrying mutations.

AE_MCP_READONLY=1 restricts project changes. AE_MCP_ALLOW_CATEGORIES filters operations. Arbitrary eval is off unless AE_MCP_ENABLE_EVAL=1. Never use a shared writable directory for the executable mailbox. Keep secrets out of skill documents and server logs.

Skills and development

Skill entries and their references are maintained directly under skills/; no network or sibling checkout is needed to read them. The AE runtime includes and serves only the after-effects group and verifies manifest-listed hashes. Other application groups belong in their own local packages. The original bridge archive lives under creative-skills/ in this repository and is excluded from the runtime package.

npm run skills:manifest
npm run check
npm run test:offline

Edit skills/ directly, then regenerate skills/manifest.json and commit it together with the skill changes. Generation writes only the manifest, works with uncommitted edits and requires no Git metadata. npm run skills:check rejects stale descriptions, hashes, missing entries and invalid reference links. The manifest records a sha256 per Markdown document and per file under assets/ or scripts/, and rejects a SKILL.md over 64 KiB; ae_get_skill no longer returns that obsolete snapshot field. Live tests under tests/e2e have separate prerequisites; offline success does not prove rendering on your AE installation. See VALIDATION.md for the actual checks performed on this fork.

The root After Effects package publishes to the public npm registry as fnf-after-effects-mcp. Install the current release with npm install --global --ignore-scripts fnf-after-effects-mcp@0.1.1. Do not use the upstream package name when installing this fork. Historical upstream documentation is preserved in docs/UPSTREAM-README.md for reference.

Blender development and releases

cd blender
npm ci
npm test
npm run typecheck
npm run test:package

See Blender setup and verification and the Blender release procedure. The published npm identifiers stay fnf-after-effects-mcp and fnf-blender-mcp; /use-blender continues installing from npm. CI validates and packs each package independently.