Cavi Adobe MCP

Local MCP servers for Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Animate, Character Animator and Dimension. Each server edits owned copies of documents inside one workspace, records every native operation before it runs, and reports an uncertain outcome as unknown instead of retrying it.

Startup and tool discovery never launch an application. A tool reaches an application only when it is called, and only an application that is already installed and licensed.

Requirements

• macOS, Python 3.11+ and uv.
• The Adobe applications you use, installed and signed in. No license or account is supplied by these servers.
• Automation access for the MCP host to control the application (Photoshop, Illustrator, Animate). The servers never request permissions; they report a denial.
• Animate and Character Animator also use a small native helper compiled on first use, which needs the Swift command-line compiler (xcode-select --install) and existing Accessibility access. Character Animator capture also needs Screen Recording access.
• ffmpeg on PATH for review movies.

Install

uv tool install cavi-adobe-mcp

Register the servers you need in your MCP client and set the workspace:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "adobe-authoring": {
      "command": "cavi-adobe-authoring-mcp",
      "env": {"CAVI_ADOBE_WORKSPACE": "/Users/me/Art"}
    }
  }
}

Configuration

Ownership records live inside the workspace (.adobe-authoring/, .animate-authoring/); keep them private.

Tools

• Authoring: adobe_status, adobe_inspect, adobe_open_copy, adobe_create_canvas, adobe_edit_layers, adobe_resize_image, adobe_add_group, adobe_place_image, adobe_add_rectangle, adobe_add_path, adobe_add_text, adobe_apply_mask, adobe_fonts, adobe_export, adobe_close_copy, adobe_operation_control, after_effects_render, media_review_movie.
• Animate: animate_status, animate_inspect, animate_open_copy, animate_create_from_png, animate_set_stage_size_from_source, animate_edit_timeline, animate_export_frames, animate_close_copy, animate_operation_control.
• Character Animator: character_status, session_control, project_select, project_save_copy, inspect, capture, scene_action, scene_export, import_media, export_inspect, export_ingest, operation_control.
• Dimension: dimension_status, dimension_launch, dimension_inspect, dimension_render_start, dimension_render_inspect.

For a closed Character Animator project, use project_prepare_copy to copy its saved .chproj project and Ch Data tree into a new workspace destination. Pass the returned prepared_copy_id to session_control(action="open_prepared_copy"), inspect the actual opened project root, then use session_control(action="claim", prepared_copy_id=...) to establish ownership before editing. Open and claim operate on that exact prepared copy.

Every tool error returns one structured result (code, outcome, next_action) from cavi-mcp-core. An unknown outcome means the application may have changed: inspect it, or resolve the recorded operation with the server's operation_control tool, before trying again.

When a pending Character Animator chooser is behind the app, the server activates the app and rechecks the recorded process, project, and exact chooser before continuing. For an unknown initial Save As whose app process has exited, operation_control(action="reconcile_copy_after_exit") can record that the destination is absent and no copy was verified; it does not report a successful save or a user cancellation.

Development

uv sync --locked --dev
uv run --locked python -m unittest discover -s tests
uv run --locked ruff check .

Tests that drive the real applications run only when their CAVI_*_NATIVE variable is set; the rest use recorded responses and never launch an application.

License

MIT. Adobe, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Animate, Character Animator and Dimension are trademarks of Adobe Inc.; this project is not affiliated with Adobe.