---
title: "Other AI apps"
description: "Use Creator Terminal from Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenCode or another app that speaks MCP: its agent gets the copilot's tools and can hand a whole brief to the copilot itself."
canonical: "https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/mcp/"
last_updated: 2026-10-28
---

# Other AI apps

Use Creator Terminal from Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenCode or another app
that speaks MCP: its agent gets the copilot's tools and can hand a whole brief to the copilot
itself.

## Add it

`creator-tui mcp` is the server. Add it to your app once:

| App | How |
| --- | --- |
| Claude Code | `claude mcp add creator-tui -- creator-tui mcp` |
| Codex | `codex mcp add creator-tui -- creator-tui mcp` |
| VS Code | `code --add-mcp '{"name":"creator-tui","command":"creator-tui","args":["mcp"]}'` |
| OpenCode | Add it to `opencode.json` (below), or run `opencode mcp add`. |
| Claude Desktop, Cursor and others | Add the server to the app's MCP settings, as below. |

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "creator-tui": { "command": "/Users/you/.local/bin/creator-tui", "args": ["mcp"] }
  }
}
```

An app opened from the Dock, Finder or the Start menu may not look where the install line puts the
command (`~/.local/bin`; on Windows, `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\creator-tui`): give it the full
path, which `which creator-tui` prints (`where creator-tui` on Windows, its `\` written `\\` in
the JSON).

| App | Where it keeps its servers |
| --- | --- |
| Claude Desktop | `~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json` on a Mac, `%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json` on Windows |
| Cursor | `.cursor/mcp.json` in your home folder (`%USERPROFILE%\.cursor\mcp.json` on Windows) |

OpenCode has its own shape: `command` is a list, and `timeout` gives each call ten minutes, as
`ask` can take a few (OpenCode 1 otherwise stops a call after a minute). Put it in
`~/.config/opencode/opencode.json` for every project
(`%USERPROFILE%\.config\opencode\opencode.json` on Windows), or in a project's `opencode.json` for
that one; `.jsonc` works too. `opencode mcp add` asks for the server step by
step; then add the `timeout`.

```json
{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "mcp": {
    "creator-tui": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["creator-tui", "mcp"],
      "enabled": true,
      "timeout": 600000
    }
  }
}
```

## Where it works

- **With Creator Terminal open**, the agent works in the document in front, as the copilot does:
  the layer it touches is selected, the playhead goes where it keys, the tracks it changes light
  up. What it does is one undo step until you edit or save: `u` takes it all back.
- **With none open**, it works in a document of its own, with no screen, saved as it goes (a
  moment after its last edit, and as the app it's in closes): where `open` said, or a new one in
  Documents as `untitled.ctd`. Open that file in Creator Terminal to carry on.
- Opening or quitting Creator Terminal partway through a conversation is fine: the next call goes
  where the app is now, and its answer says so. With several open, it works in the one opened
  last.
- `creator-tui mcp --alone` never uses the app open: always a document of its own.

## What it can do

Everything the copilot can: read the document and look at its frames, make and change layers,
key and ease, text and fonts, effects, mattes and masks, rigs, behaviours, repeats, particles,
state machines, tokens and charts, sound and music, cut a video, trace a picture, read a web
page, find a component in a UI library and bring it in as layers (`component`), and export (Lottie, dotLottie, SVG, MP4, WebM, MOV, GIF, WebP, APNG, PNG frames). And three
of its own:

| Tool | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| `ask` | Hands a whole brief to Creator Terminal's copilot (Claude Code, Codex or Kimi Code, as set in the app, with its own director's brief and playbooks), as if typed in its panel. In the app open, the panel opens and you watch it work. It answers with what the copilot said and how many edits it made, in 20 seconds to a few minutes. |
| `open` | Opens a Lottie, `.lottie`, `.ctd`, SVG, Rive or Frolic file in a tab of its own, or a new document. Its answer lists what an SVG or Rive file couldn't bring over, as `creator-tui export --json` does ([Command line](https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/cli.md#export)). |
| `save` | Saves the document as a `.ctd`; a new one at the `path` it's given. |

An app that stops a tool after a while may stop a long `ask`: give it more time in its settings
(Codex's is `tool_timeout_sec`; OpenCode's is `timeout`, above).

## Privacy and safety

- The server is on this computer alone. Each run of Creator Terminal listens at a local address
  with a token made new each time, kept in `~/.config/motion/live/` where only you can read it;
  pages in a browser are refused.
- With **App › AI features** off (`F2`), agents in other apps can't find it or use it:
  `creator-tui mcp` doesn't start, and one already running takes no more calls.
- The other app's agent sees what the tools give it (the document, its frames, the files it
  opens) and sends it to that app's AI provider. `ask` runs the copilot as it runs in the app,
  with your agent's account.
- `open` never writes over the file it opens (it's kept as a `.ctd` beside it), `save` never
  writes over a file that's there, and exports go beside the document.

## Good to know

- The document's background (`canvas` background) is the stage's and isn't exported. For a
  background in the animation, the agent asks `canvas` for one as a layer; ask for "a dark
  background layer" if it doesn't.
- Frames come back as pictures. An app or model that can't see pictures gets what the tools say
  in words.
- `controls` and `takes` stay the copilot's: sliders under what it made and takes in tabs only
  make sense in its panel.