Manual · Chapter 19
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.
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.
- 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. - 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.
- 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.
- In Connect an AI agent, choose From anywhere and press Connect. The window gives you a link.
- 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 drifteditwith the link after it. - 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.