# Working with an AI agent

> Letting Claude, Cursor or any MCP client edit with DriftEdit, on your computer or from anywhere, and what an agent can do.

https://driftedit.app/manual/agents/

An AI agent can use DriftEdit for you: cut a set of clips to a song, apply techniques, write captions, check frames and export, while you watch the edit happen in the studio. DriftEdit speaks MCP, the protocol AI apps use to work with tools, so it works with Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT and any other MCP client.

Open **Help**, **Connect an AI agent** (or **MCP** in the top bar). There are two ways.

## On this computer
The agent runs on your computer and DriftEdit runs in a separate Chrome on the same computer. Files go between them by their paths on your disk; nothing is sent to DriftEdit.

1. In **Connect an AI agent**, choose **On this computer** and download the server file, `driftedit-mcp.mjs`. You need Node.js 20 or later and Chrome installed.
2. Add it to your agent. For Claude Code:

```
claude mcp add driftedit -- node ~/Downloads/driftedit-mcp.mjs
```

   For Claude Desktop, Cursor and other clients, the window shows the settings to paste: replace `/full/path/to/driftedit-mcp.mjs` in them with where the file is on your computer.
3. Ask for a video, with the files' paths: "Make a 30 second vertical edit from the videos in ~/Videos/trip, cut to ~/Music/song.mp3 in the Hype style. Check a few frames, then export to ~/Desktop."

Add `--show` after the file's path to watch the agent work in Chrome, and `--out` with a folder to choose where exports go.

## From anywhere
An agent that runs somewhere else, such as Claude on claude.ai or Claude Code in the cloud, can work in the studio open in your own browser.

1. In **Connect an AI agent**, choose **From anywhere** and press **Connect**. The window gives you a link.
2. Give the agent the link. In Claude, add a custom connector with the link as its URL (Customize, Connectors) and choose no sign-in. In Claude Code, run `claude mcp add --transport http driftedit` with the link after it.
3. Ask for what you want. Every change appears in your tab as the agent makes it, and undoes like your own.

Your footage stays in the tab: the agent sees the edit and the pictures of it that it asks for, and asks you for any other file it needs. Keep the link private: anyone who has it can edit in your tab while it is connected. **Disconnect** ends the connection, and **New link** makes the old one useless.

## What an agent can do
The agent has 52 tools, each explained for it: every auto mode setting, the whole timeline (place, move, trim, split, speed, keyframes, effects, transitions, masks), the song's beats, techniques and techniques of your own, still frames, titles and captions, sound, every menu command, projects (save, save as new, duplicate), a frame or a contact sheet of the edit to look at before exporting, and export to MP4, WAV or PNG.

It can record too, with its **record** tool: a microphone or camera you have allowed starts on its word, and for the screen it asks you, in the Record window, to choose what to share. Each source lands as its own clip, as yours do.

It can also read this manual, chapter by chapter, with its **manual** tool, so it can follow the same steps a person would.

> [!TIP] Ask the agent to look
> Agents make better edits when they check their work: ask it to look at a few frames or a contact sheet before it exports.