After Effects MCP - Enhanced Multilingual Edition

🌍 العربية / Arabic README

Control Adobe After Effects from any MCP client (Claude Code / Claude Desktop) using natural language: create and inspect comps and layers, animate, apply effects and presets, manage masks/cameras, render in the background, and run arbitrary ExtendScript - with first‑class Arabic / RTL support and tools that work on After Effects in any UI language.

This is an enhanced edition built on the original work of Dakkshin/after-effects-mcp. See CREDITS.md.

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✨ Why this edition

Area	This edition
Works in any AE language	All standard property lookups use locale‑independent matchNames → no breakage on Arabic/French/German/Japanese AE
Arabic / RTL text	create-text-layer auto‑detects Arabic, sets right‑to‑left direction and right alignment
Arbitrary scripting	execute-script runs any ExtendScript → reach every AE feature
Visual feedback	see-frame renders a frame back as an image so the AI can SEE its work and self-correct (no other AE MCP does this)
Deep inspection	inspect-comp / inspect-layer - see exact state before editing
Rendering	In‑app render queue and background aerender (no UI freeze)
Reliability	Per‑command IDs (no stale results), one undo group per command, faster polling, OneDrive‑proof shared folder, check-bridge health/version check
Layer management	Cameras, duplicate, delete, masks, batch transform, comp settings - as dedicated tools

47 tools total. Full details in ENHANCEMENTS.md.

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📋 Prerequisites

• Adobe After Effects 2022 or later
• Windows or macOS. After Effects itself only runs on these two platforms, so the server is meant to run on the same machine as After Effects. The Node process starts on Linux and the CI builds and tests there, but there is no After Effects for it to drive.
• Node.js 18+ - https://nodejs.org
• An MCP client (e.g. Claude Code: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code)

🚀 Setup

git clone https://github.com/a-y-ibrahim/after-effects-mcp.git
cd after-effects-mcp
npm install              # installs + builds
npm run install-bridge   # copies the panel into AE's ScriptUI Panels

Then in After Effects:

1. Enable scripting - Windows: Edit > Preferences > Scripting & Expressions; macOS: After Effects > Settings > Scripting & Expressions → enable “Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network”.
2. Restart After Effects.
3. Window > mcp-bridge-auto.jsx - keep this panel open.

Register the server with your MCP client:

claude mcp add AfterEffectsMCP node /absolute/path/to/after-effects-mcp/build/index.js

First test: ask your client to “check the After Effects bridge”. It should report bridgeVersion: 1.7.1-mcp-enhanced and versionMatch: true.

💡 If you edit the server, re‑run npm run build, then restart the MCP client. If you edit the bridge, also re‑run npm run install-bridge and restart After Effects.

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🧰 Tools at a glance

Inspection & diagnostics - see-frame, contact-sheet, match-reference, inspect-comp, inspect-layer, get-results, check-bridge, run-bridge-test, get-help Composition & layers - create-composition, set-composition-properties, create-text-layer, create-camera, create-adjustment-layer, duplicate-layer, delete-layer, center-layers, set-layer-mask, batch-set-layer-properties Animation - setLayerKeyframe, setLayerExpression, get-layer-clip-frames Effects - apply-effect, add-any-effect, apply-effect-template, list-layer-effects, list-available-effects, set-effect-property, set-effect-keyframe, remove-effect, mcp_aftereffects_get_effects_help Presets - list-presets, search-presets, apply-preset Audio & markers - get-audio-info, set-audio-levels, analyze-audio-waveform, add-marker, add-markers-bulk Rendering - add-to-render-queue, render-queue, start-render, render-aerender, render-status Power - execute-script (arbitrary ExtendScript), run-script, test-animation

For project/comp overview you can also use run-script with getProjectInfo / listCompositions.

📖 Full reference: docs/TOOLS.md (all 47 tools) · docs/ARCHITECTURE.md (how the bridge works).

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🌙 Arabic / RTL example

“Create a text layer that says ‘مرحبا بالعالم’”

create-text-layer detects the Arabic text and automatically sets right‑to‑left direction and right alignment. Use a font that supports Arabic (e.g. Tahoma, Cairo). For full Arabic shaping, enable the Middle‑Eastern text engine in After Effects (Windows: Preferences > Type; macOS: Settings > Type).

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🩺 Troubleshooting

• Anything times out / odd behavior → ask “check the After Effects bridge” first.
• Version mismatch warning → re‑run npm run install-bridge, restart After Effects.
• “Result file appears stale” → the panel isn’t running or can’t write files; reopen it and confirm scripting permission.
• Windows + OneDrive → the shared folder is %LOCALAPPDATA%\ae-mcp-bridge (OneDrive‑proof). Override both sides with the AE_MCP_BRIDGE_DIR env var if needed.

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🧪 Development

npm run build       # compile + copy the bridge script
npm run typecheck   # tsc --noEmit
npm test            # Vitest unit suite

Pure logic lives in src/lib/bridge-core.ts and is unit tested in tests/bridge-core.test.ts. CI type-checks and builds on Linux, macOS, and Windows across Node 18, 20, and 22, and runs the test suite on Node 20 and 22 (Vitest 4 requires Node 20+). See CONTRIBUTING.md for the architecture and how to add a tool.

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📄 Credits & License

Licensed under the MIT License. Original work © 2025 Dakkshin; enhanced multilingual edition © 2026 Abdelrahman Youssef. See LICENSE and CREDITS.md.