MCP

One protocol, no separate app to open.

MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is a standard way for a coding agent to call tools that a separate local process exposes, over stdio rather than an HTTP API. Your agent starts the process, reads the list of tools it offers, and calls them with structured arguments when a task needs one.

openvidstudio ships as one of those processes: a local server with 44 tools, 45 if the Higgsfield tier is on. There is no openvidstudio app to open. Your agent is the interface.

1. Add it to your agent and restart

The server is the same everywhere; only the way you add it changes. Your client reads the config at startup, runs the command, and talks to the server over stdio from then on. 44 tools should appear.

Claude Code, the Claude desktop Code tab, Cowork

Install the plugin. It registers the server and the four openvidstudio skills together, and updates with one command. From a shell, run the same two with claude plugin in place of /plugin.

in a session

/plugin marketplace add AnayDhawan/openvidstudio
/plugin install openvidstudio@openvidstudio

The first start installs the server once (about 330 MB, about a minute) in the background, so the tools can take a minute to appear. Later starts are instant and work offline.

Claude Desktop, the Chat tab

Chat loads a plugin's skills but not its local server, so the tools come from the app's own config file. This writes it. Quit Claude completely and start it again.

shell

npx -y @openvidstudio/mcp-server install claude-desktop

It adds only the openvidstudio entry, keeps your other servers, and saves a backup of the file first. Then restart the app.

Cursor and VS Code

One command each. Cursor gets the global config; VS Code gets this folder's .vscode/mcp.json.

shell

npx -y @openvidstudio/mcp-server install cursor
npx -y @openvidstudio/mcp-server install vscode

It adds only the openvidstudio entry, keeps your other servers, and saves a backup of the file first. Then restart the app.

Any other MCP client

Add this to the client's mcpServers block and restart it. The client starts the server with npx, so there is nothing to clone or build.

mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openvidstudio": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@openvidstudio/mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

On native Windows some clients need the command wrapped: use "cmd" as the command and "/c", "npx", "-y", "@openvidstudio/mcp-server" as the args.

If you already added the server by hand, remove that entry before you install the plugin, or you will get two servers. Plugins do not load in Claude Code cloud sessions; use the npx config there.

Running from source instead

The clone is for running from source: to contribute, or to try changes that are not in a release yet. The normal install is the npx config above. You need git, Node and pnpm (npm install -g pnpm if you do not have it). The build compiles the capture package and the MCP server into packages/mcp-server/dist/, and the config points at it.

shell

git clone https://github.com/AnayDhawan/openvidstudio.git
cd openvidstudio
pnpm install
pnpm build

mcp.json, from source

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openvidstudio": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/path/to/openvidstudio/packages/mcp-server/dist/stdio.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

2. Point it at a project

Ask your agent to run init_project. It scaffolds src/videos/<name>/ in your repo, copies the pipeline docs into docs/, and writes openvidstudio.config.json at your project root. For a lesson, pass mode: "supernova": the frame becomes 1080 by 1920 and the lesson primitives and fonts are installed too.

openvidstudio.config.json

{
  "hasHiggsfield": false,
  "targetDurationSeconds": 60,
  "videoConfig": {
    "fps": 30,
    "width": 1920,
    "height": 1080
  }
}

The hasHiggsfield gate

import_higgsfield_clip, the tool that ingests an AI generated b roll clip into this pipeline's asset convention, is only registered when hasHiggsfield is true in your project config, read once at server startup. Leave it false, which is the default, and the tool does not appear in your agent's tool list at all. Not present and erroring: absent.

openvidstudio never holds a Higgsfield API key and never talks to Higgsfield itself. Using this tier means you already have a subscription and its own MCP connector enabled in the same agent session, and your agent generates the clip over that connection. This server's tool only takes the finished result and lands it at the right path.

Every tool this server exposes

Plan

init_projectpreflightplan_productionwrite_briefplan_shotsplan_beatsvalidate_beatswrite_beats_filediff_beats

Capture

capture_screenshotcapture_screen_recordingcapture_desktopcapture_mobilecapture_terminalextract_brandqc_capture

Build

scaffold_scenecatalog_motion_primitivesadd_motion_primitivevalidate_scenesgenerate_narrationfit_beatsrender_canvas_explainervalidate_canvas_explainerplan_sound_effectscompose_scorefind_music_bedimport_music_bedplan_music_cuesstitch_composition

Teach

check_script

Review

render_stillscontact_sheetqc_extract_framesvisual_regressiondocs_driftrelease_diff

Finish

render_videojob_statusfinalize_videowrite_descriptioncollect_factsexport_renditionreformat_vertical

Gated

import_higgsfield_clip

How it works covers what each one does, in the order your agent calls them. If you have not run Playwright or ffmpeg on this machine before, start at prerequisites.