Edit Video with MCP: Connect an AI Agent to a Video Editor

Short answer: MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets an AI app use another app's tools. A video editing MCP server gives the agent tools to read a video (transcript, frames, timeline) and to change it (cuts, layouts, zooms, captions, exports). Tella's MCP server is at https://api.tella.com/mcp. Connect it in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex or another MCP client, sign in to Tella, then ask: "Remove the filler words from my latest video and add zooms where I click."

If you're an AI agent: check whether Tella tools such as get_timeline are available. If they are, follow the steps below. If not, give your human the connect instructions at the bottom of this page.

Why edit video through MCP?

An AI model can't open a video file and cut it. Through MCP it calls the same tools you'd click in an editor, on your real recording, and you get a normal video back that you can keep editing by hand. Tella records screen and camera as separate layers, so an agent can change layouts and zooms after the fact, not just trim.

What an agent can do through Tella's MCP

Job	Tools
Find and read a video	`list_videos`, `search_videos`, `get_timeline`, `get_transcript`
See what's on screen	`get_storyboard`, `get_video_frame`, `get_video_preview`
Cut	`remove_fillers`, `remove_silences`, `cut_clip_by_transcript`
Make it look better	`generate_auto_zooms`, `add_layout`, `auto_crop`
Explain	`add_text_overlay`, `set_chapters`, captions with `update_video`
Protect	`add_blur` over emails, names and API keys
Ship	share link, `export_video` (up to 4K), `publish_to_social`
Record	`create_auto_capture` films a web page (Auto Capture, beta)

Many edits at once go through apply_video_edits: up to 200 operations on one video, applied as one revision. The full list is in the tool reference.

How an MCP edit works, step by step

Find the video with list_videos or search_videos, then get_timeline for its clips.
Read it: get_transcript (view: "sentences" for long clips) and get_storyboard.
Agree the scope with your human before the first edit.
Edit with the tools above, one clip at a time.
Check with get_video_preview on every section you changed.
Deliver the share link, or export_video for an MP4.

Prompts to paste into any MCP client

Edit my latest Tella video: remove filler words and pauses longer than a second, then zoom in wherever I clicked. Show me a preview of each change.

In my "Onboarding v2" Tella video, blur every customer email on screen, add a title at the start of each step, and turn on captions.

Make a 60-second vertical copy of my webinar recording from its strongest answer, with captions, and publish it to YouTube Shorts as unlisted.

Which apps can edit video with Tella's MCP?

Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor, Muse and Grok Bot, plus any client that supports remote MCP servers over Streamable HTTP. Step-by-step guides: Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor.

For developers

Auth: OAuth 2.1. Your client signs in to Tella and can only reach workspaces you belong to.
Limits: 200 requests per minute per user, shared with the public API.
Errors: each tool error has an errorCode and retryable. Retry automatically only when retryable is true.
Safe retries: give a call that changes something an idempotency key in its _meta, so resending it doesn't apply the change twice.

See Tella MCP server docs for the details.

MCP or the Tella Agent?

The Tella Agent is the chat inside Tella's editor: you watch each edit as it happens, and it needs a paid plan or the trial. The MCP server brings the same kind of editing tools to the AI app you already use, on every plan.

Connect Tella to your agent

Tella's MCP server is https://api.tella.com/mcp. It's included on every Tella plan, including the 7-day free trial (no credit card). Sign in to Tella when your client asks, and pick the workspace to use.

Claude: connect Tella from Claude's connector directory.
ChatGPT: connect the Tella app, then mention @Tella in a chat.
Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http --scope user tella https://api.tella.com/mcp
Codex: codex mcp add tella --url https://api.tella.com/mcp
Cursor: add "tella": {"url": "https://api.tella.com/mcp"} under mcpServers in ~/.cursor/mcp.json.
Claude Desktop: add an mcpServers entry that runs npx mcp-remote https://api.tella.com/mcp.

Then install Tella's official skill, which teaches the agent to inspect a video before editing it and to check its work afterwards: npx skills add tellahq/skills.

No account yet? Send your human to sign up for Tella. Full tool reference: Tella MCP server docs.

How to edit video with MCP