video-editor-mcp

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives Claude (or any MCP-compatible client) real video-editing tools, powered by ffmpeg. Once connected, you can ask Claude things like "trim intro.mp4 to the first 10 seconds, add my logo in the corner, and export it as a GIF" and it will call these tools directly.

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• ffmpeg and ffprobe installed and available on your system PATH
  • macOS: brew install ffmpeg
  • Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install ffmpeg
  • Windows: ffmpeg.org/download.html, then add it to PATH

Install

cd video-editor-mcp
npm install

Configure where your videos live

Every tool takes file paths. Relative paths are resolved against the MEDIA_DIR environment variable (so Claude doesn't need to know your full filesystem layout) — set it to the folder containing the videos you want to edit. Absolute paths are always used as-is. If MEDIA_DIR isn't set, it defaults to the directory you launch the server from.

Connect it to an MCP client

This is a standard MCP server using the stdio transport, so any MCP-compatible client/host can spawn and talk to it. The host just needs to launch this process and communicate over stdin/stdout:

• Command: node
• Args: ["/absolute/path/to/video-editor-mcp/src/index.js"]
• Env: MEDIA_DIR=/absolute/path/to/your/videos

How you wire that up depends on your host/client's own configuration format (most MCP-aware hosts use a command + args + env shape similar to the above).

Tools exposed

Tool	What it does
get_media_info	Duration, resolution, codecs, fps, bitrate, file size
trim_video	Cut a clip by start time + end time/duration
merge_videos	Concatenate multiple clips into one (auto-normalizes resolution)
convert_format	Change container/codec (mp4, mov, webm, mp3, etc.)
extract_audio	Pull the audio track out as an MP3
resize_video	Scale to a target width/height
crop_video	Crop to a rectangular region
rotate_video	Rotate 90/180/270° and/or flip horizontally/vertically
change_speed	Speed up or slow down (pitch-corrected audio)
adjust_volume	Raise/lower volume, or mute
extract_frame	Grab a still frame at a timestamp
add_text_overlay	Burn in a caption/title, optionally timed
add_watermark	Overlay a logo image at a chosen corner
add_fade	Fade in/out (video, audio, or both)
compress_video	Re-encode at a target quality (CRF) to shrink file size
generate_gif	Convert a video segment into an animated GIF

Each tool returns the resulting file's path and size, so Claude can chain operations (e.g. trim → add watermark → compress) by feeding one tool's output into the next tool's input.

Testing without Claude

Run the unit tests, which generate a synthetic test video with ffmpeg and exercise every operation:

npm test

Run a full protocol-level test (spins up the server and a real MCP client, lists tools, and calls a couple of them):

node test/e2e-client.js

(The e2e test expects npm test to have been run first so test/tmp/v1.mp4 exists — or generate your own test clip there.)

Notes & limitations

• All operations re-encode by default for correctness (frame-accurate trims, mixed-codec merges, etc.) rather than using fast -c copy cuts, so they're not the fastest possible, but they're reliable across arbitrary inputs.
• This server runs entirely on your local machine and only touches files you point it at — no video data is uploaded anywhere.
• There's no built-in sandboxing beyond the MEDIA_DIR convenience for relative paths; since the server has the same filesystem permissions as whatever process launches it, only connect it to clients you trust.