synthesia-mcp

An MCP server that exposes the Synthesia avatar video API to MCP clients such as Claude Desktop. Local stdio transport, API-key auth via environment, draft-by-default rendering so iteration never burns enterprise video quota.

This is a Phase 1 MVP focused on a clean capability layer; opinionated educational-video workflows live in a separate Claude skill that builds on top of these tools.

Table of contents

• What you can do with it

• Requirements

• Install & connect to Claude Desktop

• First run

• Configuration

• Tool reference

• Design notes

• Developer guide

• Roadmap

Related MCP server: VidTranslate MCP Server

What you can do with it

Once connected, you can ask Claude things like:

• "List my Synthesia templates and show me the variables of the one called 'Lesson intro'."

• "Create a draft 2-scene video introducing photosynthesis with the Anna avatar."

• "Render that as a final video now."

• "How's video abc-123… doing? When it's done, make it public."

• "Upload ./diagram.png to Synthesia and use it as the background of scene 2."

The server holds the API key; Claude never sees it.

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 20 (the server is shipped as an ESM bundle and uses the built-in fetch).

• A Synthesia API key. Enterprise plan recommended — the API is enterprise-tier on most plans. Find or create a key in Synthesia account settings: https://app.synthesia.io/#/account.

• An MCP-capable client. Claude Desktop is the primary target; the server works with any client that supports stdio MCP servers (e.g. Cursor, MCP Inspector).

Install & connect to Claude Desktop

1. Get the server onto your machine

Clone or unzip this repository, then:

cd synthesia-mcp
npm install
npm run build

That produces dist/index.js — the executable the MCP client will run.

2. Register the server with Claude Desktop

Open your Claude Desktop config:

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

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

• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add (or merge) an entry under mcpServers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "synthesia": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/synthesia-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "SYNTHESIA_API_KEY": "your-synthesia-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Use the absolute path to dist/index.js (Claude Desktop does not resolve ~ or relative paths).

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Quit fully and reopen. The Synthesia tools should appear in the tool picker. If they don't, check ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log (macOS) or the equivalent on your OS — the server logs to stderr and Claude Desktop captures it.

First run

Once connected, ask Claude:

List my Synthesia templates.

If you see your templates: you're set. If you see an auth_error: the API key is wrong or missing — double-check it in claude_desktop_config.json (no quotes inside the value, no trailing spaces) and restart Claude Desktop.

Render your first video — for free:

Create a draft 1-scene video titled "Hello" with the Anna avatar on a white_studio background. The avatar should say "Hello from Synthesia! This is my first API video."

Claude will call create_video with render_mode: "draft" by default. The result includes a videoId and a note that this is a watermarked test render. Renders take a few minutes; ask Claude to check on it:

Is that video ready yet?

Claude will call get_video and either tell you to wait, or hand you the download URL.

Only when you're happy with the draft, ask explicitly:

Render that as a final video.

A final render counts against your account's video quota.

Configuration

Required: SYNTHESIA_API_KEY

Passed as an environment variable in claude_desktop_config.json's env block. Per the MCP authorization specification, stdio servers retrieve credentials from the environment rather than implementing OAuth; that's exactly what this server does.

Optional: ~/.synthesia-mcp/config.json

Holds non-secret settings, primarily your custom avatar and voice IDs (Synthesia has no API endpoint for avatar/voice discovery, so any custom or personal avatar must be registered here to be discoverable via list_avatars).

Shape (see config.example.json):

{
  "customAvatars": [
    { "id": "uuid-from-studio", "name": "My Personal Avatar", "notes": "..." }
  ],
  "customVoices": [
    { "id": "uuid-from-studio", "name": "My Custom Voice", "language": "English (UK)" }
  ],
  "defaults": {
    "aspectRatio": "16:9"
  }
}

To get a custom avatar ID: open https://app.synthesia.io/#/actors, hover the avatar, open the three-dot menu, and pick Copy ID.

Override the config path with SYNTHESIA_MCP_CONFIG=/path/to/config.json if you want it somewhere else.

Refreshing the stock avatar/voice catalogs

The repo ships with a small seed catalog for offline use. To get the full lists from the live Synthesia documentation:

npm run refresh-catalog

That rewrites catalog/avatars.json and catalog/voices.json. Commit them. Re-run whenever Synthesia publishes new avatars or voices.

Tool reference

All tools return a JSON object inside an MCP text content block. Errors carry isError: true with a structured { code, message, remediation, details? } envelope.

Discovery

Creation

Both creation tools return a videoId immediately — Synthesia renders asynchronously, often in minutes. Check progress with get_video.

Lifecycle

Assets

Tip: scene background fields and template media variables accept URLs directly. upload_asset is only needed when the media isn't publicly reachable or a stable asset ID is preferred.

Design notes

A few decisions worth knowing about as a user:

• Draft-by-default. Every render path defaults to render_mode: "draft" (Synthesia test: true) — free, watermarked, no quota. final must be requested explicitly.

• Server-side validation. Mismatched template variable names, malformed script tags, and disallowed asset content types are caught locally before a request reaches Synthesia, so failures arrive instantly with the exact fix instead of after a wasted render.

• Traceability. Every created video gets a callbackId (auto-stamped mcp/yyyy-mm-dd/title-slug if you don't supply one). Useful for spotting MCP-originated videos in a shared workspace and for the planned Phase 4 webhook integration.

• Token-frugal responses. Tools return curated fields, not raw API payloads, to keep your context window healthy across long workflows.

• Logging stays out of the way. All logs go to stderr (stdout is reserved for the MCP protocol). The API key is registered with a redactor so it can never accidentally appear in a log line.

• Rate-limit aware. On HTTP 429, the server reads RateLimit-Reset and retries once after the indicated wait (capped). Synthesia Enterprise's tier limits are generous enough that you'll rarely see this.

• No waiting/polling tool by design. Renders can take minutes; blocking a chat turn that long is worse than a quick check-in. Use get_video when you're curious.

• Hosted-readiness without speculation. The credential layer is isolated behind a CredentialProvider interface; the tool registration is transport-agnostic. Switching to a hosted Streamable HTTP deployment with OAuth 2.1 later is a contained swap, not a rewrite.

Developer guide

Layout

src/
  index.ts                 # entry: wires credentials → client → tools → stdio transport
  credentials.ts           # CredentialProvider interface + EnvCredentialProvider
  config.ts                # local config loading (custom avatars/voices, defaults)
  catalog-loader.ts        # reads catalog/*.json
  logger.ts                # stderr-only logger with secret redaction
  errors.ts                # SynthesiaMcpError + error code enum
  synthesia/
    client.ts              # HTTP client: auth, two hosts, 429 retry, error mapping
    types.ts               # minimal API response types
  util/
    escape.ts              # templateData text entity escaping
    script-tags.ts         # break/sub tag validator
    tooling.ts             # ok/fail envelopes, guard wrapper, callbackId stamping
  tools/
    discovery.ts           # list_avatars, list_voices
    templates.ts           # list_templates, get_template
    videos.ts              # create_video, create_video_from_template, get_video, list_videos, update_video, delete_video
    assets.ts              # upload_asset, upload_script_audio
catalog/
  avatars.json             # seed snapshot; regenerate with npm run refresh-catalog
  voices.json              # seed snapshot
scripts/
  refresh-catalog.mjs      # regenerates the catalog files from docs.synthesia.io
test/
  smoke.mjs                # offline smoke test (no API key required)

Build & test

npm install
npm run build       # tsc → dist/
npm run smoke       # offline: spawns the built server, calls list_avatars

The smoke test verifies all 12 tools are registered and that list_avatars returns catalog data — without making network calls, so no API key is required.

Adding a new tool

1. Create or edit a module in src/tools/.

2. Define a zod schema for the inputs (it's both the validator and the source of the JSON Schema advertised to clients).

3. Wrap the handler with guard(name, handler) from util/tooling.ts to get consistent error envelopes.

4. Return data via ok({...}) — keep the payload curated, not the raw API response.

5. Register the module from src/index.ts.

6. Add the tool name to EXPECTED_TOOLS in test/smoke.mjs.

Authorization architecture

The MCP authorization specification draws a clean line between transports:

• stdio (local): retrieve credentials from the environment, no OAuth flow.

• Streamable HTTP (remote): OAuth 2.1 with PKCE, dynamic client registration, etc.

This server ships only the stdio path. The CredentialProvider interface in credentials.ts is the seam: a future hosted variant adds an HTTP transport in index.ts and a session-scoped provider implementing the same interface — no tool code changes. The Synthesia client always reads the key through the interface, never directly from process.env.

Error model

All failures surface as SynthesiaMcpError instances. The guard() wrapper turns them into MCP tool results with isError: true and the structured { error: { code, message, remediation, details? } } envelope. Error codes are deliberately few and category-level:

• auth_error — 401/403 from Synthesia

• config_error — missing env var or malformed config file

• validation_error — local pre-flight failed; nothing was sent to Synthesia

• not_found — 404 from Synthesia

• rate_limited — 429 after retry

• moderation_rejected — Synthesia content moderation

• file_error — local file unreadable, download failed, wrong type

• upstream_error — everything else from the Synthesia side

remediation is written for the LLM to self-correct in the next turn — concrete, specific, with the exact field name or available values where possible.

Catalog refresh

npm run refresh-catalog fetches https://docs.synthesia.io/reference/avatars.md and …/voices.md, parses the markdown tables, and overwrites the JSON catalogs. The refresh script is intentionally simple: no schema migrations, no diffs — just replace and commit.

Roadmap

This server is the MCP layer of a two-layer plan. Things deliberately not in v1:

• Phase 4: webhook tools (Synthesia fires video.completed / video.failed with captions, thumbnails, and your callbackId in the payload). Requires a public HTTP receiver; polling via get_video suffices for interactive authoring.

• Phase 5: translations, XLIFF export/import, dubbing — the localization surface is substantial and earns its own milestone.

• Phase 6: hosted Streamable HTTP deployment with OAuth 2.1, multi-account profiles, evals.

On top of this server, a separate Claude skill handles the educational workflow: eliciting audience, learning objectives, target duration (translated into a word-count budget), tone, and pedagogical structure; co-writing the script scene by scene; then delegating execution to these tools. The skill is opinionated and customizable per user; this server stays plug-and-play.

License

MIT.