travel-animator

travel-animator (PyPI name; the Python import path is tada_render) is the public half of TADA, the off-device renderer for Travel Animator export configs. It renders an already-resolved input (a "render bundle") to an H.264 MP4 with no credentials and no private choreography code:

render bundle (config.json + frame_plan.pb + cached assets/tiles) -> OpenGL/Skia render -> H.264 MP4

It ships the rendering pipeline, the encoder, an offline bundle reader, a CLI, and an optional MCP server. It does not include the animation choreography builder or the credentialed asset fetchers that turn a live Travel Animator export into a render bundle in the first place — those stay in the private tada package.

Install

pip install travel-animator

Requirements: Python 3.12+, an OpenGL implementation (a GPU driver in production, Mesa/llvmpipe for CPU-only use), and FFmpeg/PyAV's usual runtime libraries.

For the MCP server, install the mcp extra:

pip install "travel-animator[mcp]"

The extra keeps the MCP SDK out of the base install (and out of the GPU worker's dependency set — the renderer itself never imports it).

CLI

Console script: travel-animator.

travel-animator login           # interactive magic-link login, or store a bearer token
travel-animator logout          # remove locally stored credentials (local only; see below)
travel-animator render-bundle   # render a prepared, offline bundle to MP4
travel-animator mcp             # run the stdio MCP server (requires the `mcp` extra, below)

login authenticates against the same account system the Travel Animator mobile app uses. With no argument on an interactive terminal it runs a magic-link flow (email -> 6-digit code); with a token argument, -, or piped stdin it stores a bearer token directly (for CI). Credentials are written to ~/.config/tada/credentials.json (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tada/credentials.json) with mode 0600.

logout removes whatever is stored locally. There is currently no server-side session revocation: a stolen credentials file remains valid at the login service until it naturally expires. logout only stops this machine from presenting it.

render-bundle renders a bundle produced by the private tada prepare command (or an equivalent producer) with no network access. Its --encoder default is libx264 (CPU-only, works on any machine); a GPU worker with NVIDIA hardware should pass --encoder h264_nvenc explicitly. Run travel-animator render-bundle --help for the full flag reference.

travel-animator never imports the private tada package, so it works standalone for every command above, including render-bundle (ADR 0007: the bundle carries its own embedded frame plan, so no choreography code is needed to play it back).

MCP server

The mcp extra adds travel-animator mcp: a stdio MCP server that lets an agent author a Travel Animator export config (build a route, tune the animation, render a video) without the private tada package. (Earlier versions shipped this as a standalone tada-render-mcp console script; it's now a subcommand so future public CLI features don't each need their own binary — ADR 0009 amendment.) A typical MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "travel-animator-mcp": {
      "command": "travel-animator",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Run travel-animator login in a terminal first — tools that need a credential fail with a clear message telling you to do so, and auth_status lets an agent check before it builds a trip it cannot render.

Licence

travel-animator is published under a limited use licence, not an open-source licence. In short: you may install and run it unmodified to prepare and render Travel Animator content and to talk to Lascade's services. You may not redistribute it, modify it, or build a competing service with it. The full terms ship inside the package at tada_render/LICENSE.

The bundled fonts (SIL Open Font License 1.1) and flag artwork (MIT) are third-party assets under their own licences, which that restriction does not touch. Their notices and full licence texts are in tada_render/THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.

For redistribution or modification rights, contact Lascade.