Maya MCP

Connect Autodesk Maya to AI assistants (Claude, Cursor, VS Code) via the Model Context Protocol.

How it works

AI Client  ──stdio──►  MayaMCP server  ──TCP :9877──►  Maya commandPort  ──►  maya.cmds

Maya's built-in commandPort acts as the TCP bridge. The MCP server sends Python expressions to it; Maya evaluates them on its main thread and returns results. No plugin required.

The server opens a new connection for every command and closes it afterwards. Maya's commandPort serves one connection at a time, so this lets several AI clients (e.g. Claude Desktop and Claude Code) use the same Maya session.

Security: the commandPort runs any Python code sent to it, and so does the execute_maya_code tool. Only open the port on a machine you trust, keep it bound to localhost, and close it (cmds.commandPort(name=":9877", close=True)) when you don't need it.

Related MCP server: Maya MCP Server

Setup

1. Install the MCP server

Requires uv (or pip) and Python 3.10+.

uv tool install git+https://github.com/science-animated/maya-mcp
# or with pip:
pip install git+https://github.com/science-animated/maya-mcp

Install from this repository. The maya-mcp package on PyPI is a different project.

2. Configure Maya

Copy (or symlink) maya_mcp_handlers.py and userSetup.py from this repository to your Maya scripts directory:

• macOS: ~/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/scripts/

• Linux: ~/maya/scripts/

• Windows: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\maya\scripts\

userSetup.py opens commandPort :9877 every time Maya starts. If you already have a userSetup.py, add its contents to yours instead. After restarting Maya, the Script Editor shows maya-mcp: commandPort :9877 open: True.

Maya 2022+ may ask in a Safe Mode dialog whether to allow the new userSetup.py. Allow it, otherwise Maya skips the file (see Preferences → Security).

To activate it without restarting Maya, run this in the Script Editor:

import maya.cmds as cmds
cmds.commandPort(name=":9877", sourceType="python")

3. Configure your AI client

The AI client starts maya-mcp itself. You don't need to run it in a terminal.

Claude Desktop: edit claude_desktop_config.json (macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/, Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\) and restart Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "maya": {
      "command": "/full/path/to/maya-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Use the full path (find it with which maya-mcp, usually ~/.local/bin/maya-mcp). Apps started from the Dock don't get your shell's PATH.

Claude Code CLI:

claude mcp add maya --scope user -- maya-mcp

Environment variables (optional):

Available tools (23)

render_scene uses Arnold when it is the active renderer and the Maya Software renderer otherwise. Renders without an output_path are deleted after they are returned.

Example prompts

• "Create a red sphere at position (2, 0, 0)"

• "List all objects in the scene"

• "Take a screenshot of the viewport"

• "Export the selected objects as FBX to /tmp/export.fbx"

• "Set the render resolution to 1920x1080 and render the scene"

• "Create a point light above the scene and set its intensity to 2"

Troubleshooting

Claude Desktop logs are in ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-maya.log (macOS).

Development

git clone https://github.com/science-animated/maya-mcp
cd maya-mcp
uv tool install --editable .

With an editable install, changes to src/maya_mcp/server.py take effect when the AI client restarts the server (/mcp → reconnect in Claude Code). Changes to maya_mcp_handlers.py need a Maya restart or importlib.reload(maya_mcp_handlers).

Supported Maya versions

Maya 2022 and later (Python 3). Tested with Maya 2025 and Arnold (MtoA) 5.6 on macOS.

License

MIT