Aseprite MCP

What diivi/aseprite-mcp does

Aseprite becomes controllable through MCP with diivi/aseprite-mcp, a Python server intended for creating and editing pixel art and animated sprites. The repository describes 123 tools organized into 18 categories. These cover the sprite canvas, raster drawing, text, layers, regions, effects, animation, palettes, transforms, slices, tilemaps, import and export, inspection, analysis, quality checks, scene operations, previews, and scripting.

The server supports both construction and revision workflows. An agent can create a sprite, establish layers and frames, place pixels or geometric shapes, add text, adjust layer structure, and prepare an animation. Inspection and feedback tools let a workflow examine pixels, metadata, previews, frame differences, bounds, colors, and animation consistency.

How it works

The MCP client sends tool calls to the Python server, which uses Aseprite’s API to operate on sprites. Canvas tools establish dimensions and active state; drawing tools then target the current or an explicitly selected layer and frame. Variants ending in _at can address a particular layer and frame directly, and can create the required cel when needed. Coordinates are expressed in sprite-global space.

For compact, hand-authored details, draw_rows accepts character rows plus a color legend. It can leave unmatched characters untouched and optionally add a one-pixel outline. draw_iso_box creates a solid 2:1 isometric box with separate colors for its faces, which is useful for props and furniture.

Animation work can append frames, select frames, assign durations, and use the broader animation and quality categories for frame-oriented workflows. Export tools cover formats and views such as PNG, GIF, sprite sheets, per-layer output, per-tag output, and previews on a background.

Tools and capabilities

• Create sprites and manage layers, groups, active frames, and frame durations.
• Draw pixels, lines, rectangles, circles, ellipses, polygons, paths, gradients, and flood fills.
• Render compact pixel designs with character rows and construct isometric boxes.
• List fonts, measure text, and draw text with anchors, faux bold, outlines, shadows, and letter spacing.
• Duplicate, rename, reorder, merge, flatten, delete, and change the blend mode of layers.
• Work with palettes, effects, transforms, slices, tilemaps, animation data, and sprite regions.
• Inspect pixels and metadata, generate previews and onion-skin renders, compare frames, check bounds, and run lint or quality validation.
• Use a raw Lua tool for Aseprite operations not covered by the higher-level interface.

Text rendering is handled on the server because Aseprite’s Lua API does not provide text drawing. Bitmap sprite-sheet fonts and TrueType fonts are supported. Fonts can come from the server’s ~/.aseprite-mcp/fonts directory, installed system fonts, or a direct font path.

Limitations and notes

Text layout should generally begin with measure_text; it returns the dimensions and baseline information used by draw_text, allowing labels and panels to be positioned before rendering. Bitmap fonts are suited to pixel-art output because their glyphs are already rasterized and their size scales by whole numbers. TrueType files can be rendered without antialiasing unless antialiasing is requested.

The repository’s examples include still sprites, multi-frame animations, isometric scenes, and exported GIF or PNG results. The listed tool categories extend beyond the individual canvas and drawing operations, so the short tool list commonly shown in integrations represents only part of the complete interface.