Open Edit

AI-native video editing, driven over MCP.

The Review Studio, live: preview a cut, inspect renders, and scrub the edit graph.

The timeline: clips on V1/A1/A2, edit markers, and a playhead that is ready to scrub.

*The 60-second logo intro — animated in HTML/CSS with the HyperFrames engine and rendered entirely through Open Edit's own pipeline (the agent built the project, added the overlay, and ran the final 1080p30 GPU export).*

What it is

Open Edit is an AI-native video editor that runs as a local MCP server over stdio. An external agent (Cursor, Claude Code, OpenCode, any MCP client) owns the creative loop; Open Edit owns the machinery: SHA-256 content-addressed ingest, word-level transcription (faster-whisper), an append-only IR edit graph in SQLite (WAL), and melt + ffmpeg rendering with a 640×360 proxy review artifact and a 1080p final export.

No cloud, no built-in LLM. The server is pinned to one project directory and executes 28 kinds of IR edit operations against it, each one recorded, reversible, and renderable.

Downloads

Python package (pip):

pip install open-edit      # installs the open-edit CLI + open-edit-mcp server

Linux / macOS — one command (full render stack):

curl -fsSL https://github.com/AH64-dll/OpenEdit/releases/download/v1.3.1/install.sh | bash

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://github.com/AH64-dll/OpenEdit/releases/download/v1.3.1/install.ps1 | iex

Source (v1.3.1): zip · tar.gz

Both installers also provision the render runtime (Node.js + the bundled HyperFrames overlay engine, plus ffmpeg/melt/Chrome checks) and print a readiness summary — see INSTALL.md → Runtime requirements.

The agent way

Open Edit is built to be operated by an agent, not a GUI. Paste the install prompt into your agent and it will clone, install, verify end to end, and report back. Then paste the configure prompt to register the MCP server in your host and confirm all six tools appear.

• docs/agent-install.md — agent-driven install prompt
• docs/agent-configure.md — agent-driven MCP configuration

The normal way

Linux / macOS

git clone https://github.com/AH64-dll/OpenEdit.git
cd OpenEdit
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -U pip
pip install -e ".[mcp]"        # extras: ,serve (review UI) · ,whisper (transcription)

Windows (PowerShell)

git clone https://github.com/AH64-dll/OpenEdit.git C:\OpenEdit
cd C:\OpenEdit
python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1   # if blocked: Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned
python -m pip install -U pip
pip install -e ".[mcp]"

Check the entry point, create a project, and start the review studio:

.venv/bin/open-edit-mcp --help            # Windows: .\.venv\Scripts\open-edit-mcp.exe --help
mkdir -p ~/OpenEditProjects               # Windows: New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\OpenEditProjects"
open_edit init ~/OpenEditProjects/my-talk
open_edit serve --review-only --port 8000 # → http://127.0.0.1:8000 (needs the ,serve extra)

Register the server in Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json on Linux/macOS, %USERPROFILE%\.cursor\mcp.json on Windows) and reload MCP:

// Linux / macOS
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "open-edit": {
      "command": "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/OpenEdit/.venv/bin/open-edit-mcp",
      "args": ["--project", "/home/YOU/OpenEditProjects/my-talk"],
      "env": { "OPEN_EDIT_RENDER_BACKEND": "cpu" }
    }
  }
}

// Windows
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "open-edit": {
      "command": "C:\\OpenEdit\\.venv\\Scripts\\open-edit-mcp.exe",
      "args": ["--project", "C:\\Users\\YOU\\OpenEditProjects\\my-talk"],
      "env": { "OPEN_EDIT_RENDER_BACKEND": "cpu" }
    }
  }
}

What you get

Tool	Role
query_project	Read-only project queries
edit_project	Mutations + creative generation
run_script	Free-form Python IR edits (bwrap sandbox on Linux, dev on Windows)
trigger_render	Enqueue proxy / final / preview-chunks renders
get_render_job	Poll a durable render job by job_id
cancel_render_job	Cancel queued or running jobs

Render modes: proxy (640×360 review artifact, whole-file) → final (1080p). Every render passes a deterministic 10-check QC gate before it is offered to you.

Live guide

The product is documented and illustrated in the live guide: open-edit guide — what it is, how it works, and how to install it on Linux and Windows.

Docs

• INSTALL.md — full Linux + Windows setup, smoke checks, update/uninstall
• docs/MCP.md — MCP tools, Cursor config, review UI, render workflow
• skills/ — agent playbook and harness skills (also shipped in the wheel)
• docs/REMOTION_LICENSE.md — Remotion licensing

Contributing

Bugs, ideas, and pull requests are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md (fork → branch → PR; CI runs tests on every pull request).

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Experimental prototype; behavior may change between releases. Motion graphics use the bundled HyperFrames engine (HTML/CSS/JS, pinned in this repo — no extra install). Remotion is legacy/migration-only. Legacy Remotion templates may require a company license — see docs/REMOTION_LICENSE.md.