Shotcut MCP

Local video editing through the Model Context Protocol.

Create, edit, validate, preview, and render saved Shotcut projects through your AI assistant. The result stays an editable .mlt timeline, with transactional writes that protect the project as you work.

Demonstration · Quick start · Documentation · Website

Demonstration

A short H.264 export created from a native Shotcut timeline edited through Shotcut MCP.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c70f064f-17e7-403d-9bcf-689a9c616cdf

Quick start

You need Python 3.10+, Shotcut (recommended 26.8.1, bundled MLT 7.41.0), and an MCP client that supports local stdio servers. Shotcut includes the required media tools, codecs, and filters. No additional Python packages are required.

1. Connect your client

The installation guide includes commands for Windows, macOS, and Linux. No pip install is required to run the server. For a source checkout, the guide also shows how to check Python and Shotcut with scripts/shotcut_mcp_server.py --check before connecting MCP.

2. Check readiness

Ask your assistant:

Run shotcut_status and shotcut_doctor. Report tool paths, versions, and failed runtime checks.

Resolve failed runtime checks before editing. See troubleshooting for recovery steps.

3. Make your first edit

Provide the source folder and the destination for the saved project, then describe your edit:

Create a 1920×1080, 30 fps Shotcut project from every video in this folder.
Put narration on A1, add 12-frame crossfades, and save it as documentary.mlt.
Generate a contact sheet so I can review the edit before exporting.

You can request adjustments in ordinary language. See the editing workflow and example prompts for subtitles, quality analysis, effects, and delivery.

Features

• Edit the timeline: work with tracks, clips, transitions, speed changes, titles, and subtitles; discover source media in a folder and apply up to 500 operations in one transaction.
• Review the result: inspect source quality and color, preview proposed changes, and generate frames, contact sheets, or short clips with motion and audio before exporting.
• Render and deliver: export a full project, frame range, or named marker; receive the media and the exact editable project used for that render.
• Keep work local: use effects from your installed MLT build, with revision checks, validation, isolated backups, and atomic file replacement.

See the full capability reference for supported edit operations.

Transactional safety

Edits are checked against the inspected revision, validated with Melt, and backed up before atomically replacing the saved project. Unknown XML is preserved; ambiguous edits are rejected. Preview and render outputs also use temporary files and atomic promotion.

Each render uses an immutable project snapshot, so later timeline edits cannot change a running export. If export was not already requested, the client confirms the output, preset, range, and overwrite behavior first. An explicit export request does not need a second approval.

Read the transaction and recovery details and rendering behavior.

Limitations

• The server edits saved project files; it cannot see unsaved changes in Shotcut. Let an MCP edit finish before saving the same project in the GUI, then inspect it again.
• Available codecs, filters, fonts, and quality analyzers depend on your local installation.
• Some ambiguous transitions, speed maps, and cross-track edits are rejected. Changing FPS preserves recognized frame numbers rather than automatically retiming the edit.
• Network resources and unsafe consumer properties are denied by default. Administrators can restrict filesystem access through the runtime configuration.

See all limitations for speed-map boundaries and recovery behavior.

Documentation

MCP tools

The MCP tool catalog lists every tool with a concise purpose. Clients receive full schemas and operation guidance at runtime; most users can work entirely through natural-language prompts.

Development

See Contributing for the shared quality gate, real integration tests, development, and release procedures, Changelog for release changes, Issues for bugs and feature requests, and Security for private vulnerability reporting.

License

Released under the MIT License. This is an independent community project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Shotcut or the MLT project. Shotcut is a trademark of its respective owner; MLT is an independent open-source multimedia framework. This repository contains no Shotcut or MLT source code.

Created by matrodrigs.