AE MCP Bridge

Let Claude (or Codex) work inside Adobe After Effects: build compositions, shapes, text, effects and animation, look at the result as frames or a storyboard, and fix it, while you keep a normal, fully editable AE project.

Version 0.2.0 · zero dependencies · Windows and macOS · Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cowork, Codex

Inspired by "After Effects MCP by Ruslan Tsapenko" (v0.1.0) from Ruslan Tsapenko (tsapenko.com), with tools and ideas ported from TheLlamainator/after-effects-mcp (MIT).

Manual (PDF) · Tool reference (PDF) · Changelog

Example

You: "Create a 1080x1080 activity card with the step count and two labels. Animate its entrance in Apple style and show me a storyboard."

Assistant: builds the composition and the layers, opens the rounded card through its Rectangle Size with an overshoot, brings the texts in with text animators 4 frames apart, turns motion blur on, and checks the motion:

One image, nine frames with time labels: the assistant sees the whole animation at once and catches what a single frame hides, such as text showing outside a card that is still opening, uneven timing or a missing overshoot.

Related MCP server: After Effects MCP Server

What it can do

• Build: compositions, text / shape / solid / adjustment / null layers, transforms, parenting, track mattes, motion blur, effects with settings, .ffx presets, markers, audio levels.

• Animate: keyframes with real easing (Easy Ease, ease in/out, custom influence, hold), expressions, text animators with a soft per-letter wave, copying animators and effects between layers with a stagger.

• See: a frame as an image, a storyboard of the animation in one image, side-by-side comparison with a reference, MP4 previews, what you selected in AE, the full property tree with keyframes.

• Script: run any ExtendScript (ae_run_jsx) or your own .jsx files; the specialized tools are conveniences on top, not a replacement.

• Stay safe: every call is one Ctrl+Z, the project is backed up before the first change, scripts are logged, arbitrary code can be switched off.

• Teach good motion: built-in motion-design guidelines (asymmetric easing, bounce, text animators, stagger, track mattes, motion blur, review loop) available as a tool and as MCP prompts, plus an optional Claude skill (skills/after-effects-motion) with the working loop and recipes.

34 tools in total, see the reference.

Quick start

With an AI agent: in Claude Code (or Codex) say "Install AE MCP Bridge from https://github.com/justajazz/ae-mcp-bridge into C:\MCP\ae-mcp, following docs/INSTALL-AGENT.md". It runs and checks everything and asks you only for the UAC prompt, one AE preference, starting the panel and restarting apps. See INSTALL-AGENT.md.

By hand (Windows):

1. Install Node.js LTS and put this repository in a local folder, e.g. C:\MCP\ae-mcp.

2. In After Effects enable Preferences > Scripting & Expressions > Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network.

3. Install the panel and restart After Effects:

   node C:\MCP\ae-mcp\src\install-panel.mjs --link

4. Open Window > ae-mcp-panel.jsx, click Start bridge, tick Start automatically.

5. Connect your client, e.g. Claude Code:

   claude mcp add --scope project after-effects -- node "C:\MCP\ae-mcp\src\mcp-server.mjs"

   Claude Desktop / Cowork and Codex: see the manual.

6. Check without any client: node C:\MCP\ae-mcp\scripts\check-install.mjs ends with RESULT: connected.

7. Ask your assistant: "Check the connection to After Effects. Don't change anything."

How it works

The server is plain Node.js with no packages. The panel inside After Effects executes ExtendScript templates sent by the server; user data travels separately from code. Requests are synchronous with unique ids, long commands can be collected later without being run twice. Details: manual.

Development

npm test

runs the protocol, serializer, media and documentation tests against a mock panel, no After Effects needed. Every tool was also verified against a real After Effects 2026.

Credits and license

• Inspiration: Ruslan Tsapenko and his "After Effects MCP by Ruslan Tsapenko" v0.1.0 (YouTube, tsapenko.com).

• Ported tools and ideas: TheLlamainator/after-effects-mcp, based on Dakkshin/after-effects-mcp, MIT License © 2025 Dakkshin.

• Made by Claude Code & Yuriy Martyniuk (assistant, consultant and producer).

• License: MIT.