After Effects MCP

An MCP server that edits video in After Effects — from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client.

after-effects-mcp connects your AI assistant to afterAI, a hosted After Effects pipeline. Send a raw clip and get back a finished, ready-to-post short video: AI upscaling (Topaz), a cinematic color grade, animated subtitles, smooth zoom effects, and beat-synced phonk edits — all rendered in After Effects with paid-tier plugins, on afterAI's machines. No After Effects install, no plugins, no render farm on your side.

Built for creators automating YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Reels. If you found this searching for an "After Effects MCP", this is the fastest way to get real AE edits from an AI agent.

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What it does

Tool	What it does
edit_video	Submit a raw clip for a full After Effects edit (upscale, color grade, subtitles, zoom, phonk edit). Returns a job id + tracking URL.
check_status	Follow a render's progress and get the download link when it's done.
afterai_info	What afterAI does, the edit options, and how to get a key.

The finished video is emailed to the account that owns the API key, and is downloadable from the tracking URL.

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Quick start

1. Get an API key

• Subscribe to a plan: https://getafterai.eu/#pricing
• Create a key: https://getafterai.eu/api-access

The API is plan-gated: each edit_video call spends one credit. If a render fails, the credit is auto-refunded.

2. Install the server

git clone https://github.com/borishalachev1/after-effects-mcp.git
cd after-effects-mcp
npm install
npm run build

This produces dist/index.js, which your MCP client runs.

3. Add it to your MCP client

Claude Code (use the absolute path to the built file):

claude mcp add after-effects -e AFTERAI_API_KEY=ak_your_key -- node /absolute/path/to/after-effects-mcp/dist/index.js

Claude Desktop / Cursor — add to your MCP config (claude_desktop_config.json or .cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "after-effects": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/after-effects-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "AFTERAI_API_KEY": "ak_your_key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Coming soon: a published npm package so you can run it with npx -y after-effects-mcp instead of cloning.

4. Use it

"Edit this clip with a cinematic color grade and subtitles: https://drive.google.com/…"

Claude calls edit_video, then you can ask it to check_status until the download link appears.

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Configuration

Env var	Required	Default	Description
AFTERAI_API_KEY	yes (for edit_video)	—	Your afterAI key from /api-access.
AFTERAI_BASE_URL	no	https://getafterai.eu	Override the API base URL.

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edit_video options

Option	Type	Notes
videoUrl	string (required)	Public, direct link to the raw clip.
colorCorrection	boolean	Cinematic color grade.
colorCorrectionStyle	string	Style id, e.g. "1".
subtitles	boolean	Animated subtitles.
subtitleStyle	string	Style id, e.g. "3".
spokenLanguage	string	e.g. "en", "bg".
subtitleLanguage	string	"same" or a code like "en".
smoothZoom	boolean	Smooth zoom intro.
fullEdit	boolean	Beat-synced phonk edit with a beat-drop freeze climax.
watermark	boolean	Burn in a watermark.
watermarkText	string	Watermark text.
notes	string	Free-text instructions.

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Run from source

git clone https://github.com/borishalachev1/after-effects-mcp.git
cd after-effects-mcp
npm install
npm run build
AFTERAI_API_KEY=ak_your_key node dist/index.js

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How it works

This MCP server is a thin client over afterAI's public automation API (POST /api/v1/order). afterAI runs the actual After Effects pipeline (Topaz upscaling, color grade, Whisper subtitles, beat detection, render) and delivers the finished file.

License

MIT © afterAI