AE-MCP-IMT — After Effects for AI agents, built to be safe to hand over

AE-MCP-IMT = After Effects · MCP · Immersive Media Technologies.

An MCP server that lets an AI agent (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Deep Artisan or any MCP-compatible client) drive a running Adobe After Effects: inspect projects, edit comps, layers, effects, keyframes, text and masks, set expressions, render frames — from natural language.

Built by Immersive Media Technologies as the After Effects backbone of the Deep Artisan agent pipeline, and released so that other agent builders can use the same, battle-tested layer.

macOS and Windows · After Effects 2024–2026 · Node.js 24+. After Effects itself runs only on macOS and Windows, so Linux is not a target. macOS is what we run every day; the Windows transport (AfterFX.exe -r) is inherited from upstream and works the same way — reports from Windows users are welcome.

Why this one

There are several After Effects MCP servers. Most stop at "the AI can call ExtendScript". This one is designed around what an autonomous agent actually needs: a small, stable tool surface, a real dry run, undo-safe operations, honest errors and an installer that says what is wrong.

Facts about other projects are from their READMEs on GitHub at the time of writing; corrections welcome.

Related MCP server: aftr

What you can ask for

• "Import this Illustrator file and animate the title with a text-pop preset."

• "Point out anything broken in this AEP — missing footage, expressions with errors, unused comps."

• "Apply the revisions from this PDF to the comps it names."

• "Add a glow to every text layer in Intro, 30 % lighter than now."

• "Render frame 120 of Main so I can see the result."

The agent combines the 199 operations (11 MCP tools) itself, checking project state between steps.

Install

macOS

git clone https://github.com/Immersive-Media-Technologies/aftereffects-mcp-imt.git
cd aftereffects-mcp-imt
./install.sh

The installer verifies the environment, builds dist/, runs a live round-trip with After Effects and prints the config block for your client.

Windows

git clone https://github.com/Immersive-Media-Technologies/aftereffects-mcp-imt.git
cd aftereffects-mcp-imt
npm ci
npm run build

Then add the server to your client with the absolute path to dist\index.js; set AE_MCP_EXE to your AfterFX.exe if After Effects is not in the default location. The installer script is macOS-only for now.

Requirements checked by the installer:

Two permissions without which nothing works:

1. Automation — macOS must let the client control After Effects. The first call raises the system dialog; a refusal is remembered forever and shows up as AppleScript error −1743 (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation).

2. Scripting file access — After Effects → Settings → Scripting & Expressions → Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network.

Client config (Claude Code shown; any MCP client works the same):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aftereffects": {
      "command": "/opt/homebrew/bin/node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/aftereffects-mcp-imt/dist/index.js"],
      "env": { "MCP_TIMEOUT": "120000" }
    }
  }
}

MCP_TIMEOUT of 120 s matters: a cold After Effects start plus the first osascript does not fit the default 30 s. If your client caps tool output (Claude Code: MAX_MCP_OUTPUT_TOKENS), raise it to 50 000 — ae_project_info on a real project is larger than the 25 000 default.

Tools

The full operation reference is generated from the source: docs/TOOLS.md.

Safety model for agents

• Dry run first. ae_do {dryRun: true} returns the ExtendScript that would run and never contacts After Effects. Let the agent plan, then execute.

• Deny what Cmd+Z cannot revert. Because every call is one undo group, creating, editing and even deleting layers is reversible and needs no gate. Forbid on the client side: eval.run (arbitrary ExtendScript = file system access), project.new / project.open (drop unsaved work), project.reduce / purge / remove_unused_footage / consolidate_footage (outside the undo stack), pref.* and render.save_template (change the application, not the project), render.start / render.queue_in_ame (write files, occupy AE). Nested batches must be gated by their inner ops — a batch wrapper is not a way around a rule.

• AE_MCP_READONLY=1 for the first experiments on a new machine. AE_MCP_ENABLE_EVAL stays off.

• The upstream npm test is not safe on macOS with After Effects open: four transport tests assume a fake executable isolates them, but on macOS the path is not executed — the live AE answers. Run the suite with AE closed or on CI (where it self-skips).

Changes against upstream

See CHANGELOG.md and THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md. In short: the ae_do dry run that really is one; effect templates that exist and work on localized AE, with misses reported in warnings; render output folders; the installer with a live self-test; the agent permission model and the macOS notes above. Upstream fixes are merged from kumoproductions/mcp-aftereffects by topic, one at a time.

License

IMT Non-Commercial License — © Immersive Media Technologies.

• Non-commercial use only. Selling this software, offering it as or inside a paid product or service, or using it in commercial client work requires a separate written license from Immersive Media Technologies.

• Attribution is mandatory. Every use, copy, fork or derived product must credit the creator, visibly to its users: AE-MCP-IMT by Immersive Media Technologies — https://github.com/Immersive-Media-Technologies.

• No warranty.

Full terms: LICENSE. Third-party notices: THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.