AI agents

AniCraft is built so that AI assistants can use it as well as people. Any assistant that supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP) can create animation documents, draw vector shapes, arrange layers, set keyframes, build classic and shape tweens, import SVG assets, and export animations.

AniCraft has no AI of its own and does not connect to any external AI service. You provide the assistant; AniCraft provides the animation engine and tools.

Get the command-line tool

Assistants interact with AniCraft through its command-line tool, anicraft-cli:

Operating System	Where anicraft-cli is
Windows installer	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\ArtCraft\AniCraft\anicraft-cli.exe (or C:\Program Files\ArtCraft\AniCraft\)
Windows portable zip	Next to anicraft.exe in the extracted folder
macOS	Download anicraft-cli-<ver>-macos-universal.zip from the release page
Linux .deb, .rpm, Flatpak, AppImage, and FreeBSD	Installed alongside the app (e.g. /usr/bin/anicraft-cli)

On macOS, extract the downloaded zip file and move anicraft-cli into a directory on your PATH (such as /usr/local/bin or ~/.local/bin), or specify its absolute path when invoking it.

Permissions and sandboxing

When running commands or serving requests, anicraft-cli executes with the local operating system permissions of the user running it. It can access and modify any files and directories permitted by those user rights.

If you need strict isolation or are executing commands in untrusted environments, run anicraft-cli within an OS-level sandbox such as a Linux container, chroot, or virtual machine.

Connect your assistant

Claude Code

On Linux, or on macOS once anicraft-cli is on your PATH:

claude mcp add anicraft -- anicraft-cli mcp

If anicraft-cli is not on your PATH, specify its full absolute path. On Windows PowerShell with the default per-user installation:

claude mcp add anicraft -- "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\ArtCraft\AniCraft\anicraft-cli.exe" mcp

Claude Desktop

Open Settings › Developer › Edit Config in Claude Desktop, add AniCraft to your claude_desktop_config.json, and restart Claude.

If anicraft-cli.exe is installed in your user profile under %LOCALAPPDATA%, replace the path with your actual user path and escape all Windows backslashes with double backslashes (\\):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anicraft": {
      "command": "C:\\Users\\<username>\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\ArtCraft\\AniCraft\\anicraft-cli.exe",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

If you installed for all users, use C:\\Program Files\\ArtCraft\\AniCraft\\anicraft-cli.exe. On macOS or Linux, use the binary path (for example, /usr/bin/anicraft-cli or /usr/local/bin/anicraft-cli).

Other MCP clients

Any client supporting the Model Context Protocol can launch anicraft-cli with the mcp argument.

What to ask for

Here are example prompts you can give your assistant:

• “Create a bouncing ball animation on a 60 fps timeline with squash and stretch on impact, using ease-in-out curves.”
• “Import character.svg, convert each limb into a symbol, and set up a walk cycle across 24 frames.”
• “Open logo-reveal.anicraft, replace the fill colors with our brand palette, and export as an animated GIF.”
• “Inspect the active stage, find all shape tweens on layer ‘Effects’, and adjust their Bézier easing.”

Automation without an assistant

anicraft-cli can also run standalone batch jobs and headless exports in CI/CD pipelines or shell scripts:

# Render a single frame to PNG
anicraft-cli render banner.anicraft --out frame.png --frame 1

# Export frame sequences to a directory
anicraft-cli render-seq intro.anicraft --out-dir frames/ --from 1 --to 60

# Export an animated GIF
anicraft-cli gif banner.anicraft --out banner.gif --from 1 --to 60

# Create a new project document headlessly
anicraft-cli new --out new-scene.anicraft --width 1920 --height 1080 --fps 60

# Inspect project info as JSON
anicraft-cli info banner.anicraft