MCP (preferred for agents)

Video Studio exposes a local MCP server so agents (Cursor, Claude Desktop, Codex, others) can run playbooks without inventing curls.

n8n and scripts stay on HTTP (/api/*) with the same STUDIO_API_TOKEN. MCP wraps that API; it is not a second backend.

Start

pnpm dev && pnpm worker   # studio + FFmpeg jobs
pnpm mcp                  # stdio (Cursor: .cursor/mcp.json)
# or pnpm mcp:http      → http://127.0.0.1:8788/mcp

Env: STUDIO_API_TOKEN (required), optional STUDIO_BASE_URL (default http://127.0.0.1:3000). Full ops: engineering doc docs/ops/mcp.md.

Prefer these tools

Tool	Playbook
`run_talking_head`	Talking Head → Short
`run_long_clips`	Long / podcast → clips (review gate auto-selected)
`run_maestros_clip`	Maestros
`wait_for_job`	Poll until terminal (do not loop `get_job`)
`download_export`	Allowlisted artifacts (`output.mp4`, `clip-1.mp4`, `clips.zip`, …)

Batch Maestros = N calls to run_maestros_clip, not a new tool. See Maestros batch.

Rules

Prefer MCP tools, then HTTP. Never automate the editor UI.
Do not invent FFmpeg strings. Only mutate project + enqueue jobs.
Worker must be running or jobs stay queued.
Do not call MCP against Vercel production (no worker).