Open Edit

Communityby Community (AH64-dll)freeverified Oct 17, 2026

A local editor with no GUI and no LLM: an append-only edit graph an agent drives over MCP.

What it does

Open Edit runs as a local stdio MCP server pinned to one project directory, and hands the agent the machinery instead of the creative decisions: content-addressed ingest, word-level transcription via faster-whisper, an append-only intermediate-representation edit graph in SQLite, and melt + ffmpeg rendering. Every cut is one of 28 recorded, reversible IR operations, so a filmmaker can audit or revert what an agent did to the timeline rather than re-deriving it from a rendered file. Renders go proxy-first at 640x360 and only reach 1080p after passing a ten-check QC gate, which is the difference between an agent iterating cheaply and an agent burning an hour per bad idea.

Connect

Claude Code

claude mcp add open-edit -- open-edit-mcp --project /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/PROJECT

Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "open-edit": {
      "command": "open-edit-mcp",
      "args": [
        "--project",
        "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/PROJECT"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "open-edit": {
      "command": "open-edit-mcp",
      "args": [
        "--project",
        "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/PROJECT"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Auth: none

Sample tools

query_projectedit_projectrun_scripttrigger_renderget_render_jobcancel_render_job

Field notes

Two steps come before the connect command: install, then `open_edit init <project-dir>` — the server refuses to start against a directory it has not initialised. Install is in flux. PyPI `open-edit` is still 1.3.1 (12 Aug 2026), and for that path you need `pip install "open-edit[mcp]"`, because the `mcp` dependency sits in an optional extra a plain install skips. But a 13 Oct 2026 refactor on main rewrote the README around Windows x64 / Linux x64 ZIP installers (install.ps1 / install.sh, Python 3.12 recommended) that write mcp.json, opencode.json and codex.toml for you, plus `open_edit mcp-config --project PATH` to generate a host entry — and as of 17 Oct no release carrying that refactor has been cut, so the newest tagged release is still v1.3.1. The stdio command, `open-edit-mcp --project`, is unchanged across both. MIT, 48 stars, repo pushed 13 Oct 2026, Python >=3.11. Six tools, not 28 — the 28 is the count of IR edit operations reachable through `edit_project`. Pinning to one project is a deliberate blast-radius limit, but it also means one registered server per cut. `run_script` executes free-form Python against the IR; it is bwrap-sandboxed on Linux and explicitly `dev`-only on Windows, so do not expose it on a Windows box you care about. Rendering needs melt (MLT) and ffmpeg; macOS is not a supported platform. Transcription is opt-in (`whisper` extra, or `--whisper` on the installer), as is a built-in chat agent (`--with-agent`); no model ships by default. The 1.3.1 wheel still pulls in the `anthropic` SDK unconditionally. Remotion is no longer installed by default — `open_edit setup legacy-remotion` adds it, with Remotion's separate licence terms. Single maintainer; the actively maintained alternative in this space is Kinocut.

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