After Effects MCP

What a-y-ibrahim/after-effects-mcp MCP server does

The a-y-ibrahim/after-effects-mcp MCP server lets an MCP client operate Adobe After Effects through natural-language requests translated into tool calls. It supports composition and layer creation, composition settings, text layers, cameras, adjustment layers, masks, parenting, ordering, duplication, deletion, precomposition, and template population.

Animation features include keyframes, expressions, clip-frame inspection, audio-driven animation, and data-driven animation. The server also covers effects, effect properties and keyframes, presets, project footage, markers, audio levels, waveform analysis, and render queues. execute-script provides a route to After Effects features that do not have dedicated tools by accepting arbitrary ExtendScript.

How it works

The a-y-ibrahim/after-effects-mcp MCP server runs as a Node.js process and communicates with an After Effects panel named mcp-bridge-auto.jsx. The panel must remain open in After Effects. Commands and results use a shared folder, with command identifiers and health checks intended to prevent stale results and detect bridge version mismatches.

The server is designed to run on the same Windows or macOS machine as After Effects. After Effects 2022 or later and Node.js 18 or newer are listed as prerequisites. A Linux Node process may build and test successfully, but it cannot drive After Effects because the Adobe application is not available there.

Inspection tools can read compositions and layers before changes are made. see-frame renders a frame back as an image, allowing an MCP client to inspect visual output. Rendering can use the in-application queue or background aerender, which is intended to avoid freezing the After Effects interface.

Setup and configuration

To set up the a-y-ibrahim/after-effects-mcp MCP server, clone the repository, run npm install, and run npm run install-bridge to copy the panel into After Effects’ ScriptUI Panels location. Enable “Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network” in After Effects scripting settings, restart the application, and open the bridge panel from the Window menu.

The README registers the built server with an MCP client using Node and build/index.js. If the server source changes, rebuild it and restart the MCP client. Bridge changes require reinstalling the bridge and restarting After Effects as well.

On Windows, the shared folder defaults to %LOCALAPPDATA%\\ae-mcp-bridge. The AE_MCP_BRIDGE_DIR environment variable can override the bridge directory, but the override must be applied consistently to both sides. A font that supports Arabic is recommended for Arabic text layers, and the Middle-Eastern text engine may need to be enabled for full Arabic shaping.

Tools and capabilities

The a-y-ibrahim/after-effects-mcp MCP server includes tools for:

• Inspecting compositions, layers, frames, effects, project items, bridge health, and command results.
• Creating, editing, organizing, duplicating, deleting, and precomposing layers.
• Creating compositions, cameras, adjustment layers, masks, text layers, and markers.
• Applying effects and presets, changing effect properties, and setting effect keyframes.
• Importing and relinking footage and analyzing audio.
• Adding work to render queues, starting renders, using background aerender, and checking render status.
• Running arbitrary ExtendScript and testing animations.

Arabic text detection in create-text-layer can set right-to-left direction and right alignment automatically. Standard property lookups use locale-independent matchName values, supporting After Effects installations with different interface languages.

Limitations and notes

The a-y-ibrahim/after-effects-mcp MCP server depends on a running, correctly configured After Effects bridge panel. Timeouts or stale result files can indicate that the panel is closed or lacks permission to write files. The README recommends checking the bridge first when commands behave unexpectedly.

This is a local automation setup rather than a hosted After Effects service. It requires an MCP client, the desktop Adobe application, and the bridge configuration. The repository is MIT licensed and does not describe an API key or hosted authentication requirement.