kinocut

Kinocut is a free, open-source video editing MCP server and AI agent workflow engine (plus Python client and kino CLI) that lets AI agents trim, caption, repurpose, and quality-gate local video media with typed tools and Video Receipts — not invented FFmpeg flags.

Table of contents

• What is Kinocut?
• See It Work
• Installation
• Quick Start
• MCP Tools
• Status and releases
• 360 dual-cam assembly
• Changelog
• FAQ
• Agent Skill

What is Kinocut?

TL;DR: Kinocut is a free, local-first video editing MCP server (plus Python client and kino CLI) so AI agents can trim, caption, repurpose, and quality-gate media with typed tools and Video Receipts — not invented FFmpeg flags.

Kinocut is a free, open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, Python library, and kino CLI that gives AI agents a guardrailed local video-editing surface. It wraps FFmpeg (and optional Hyperframes / Whisper extras) with typed tools, preflight validation, Video Receipt provenance, and quality/release checkpoints so agent-produced media can be inspected before publish.

Best-fit searches: video editing MCP server · AI agent video editing · FFmpeg MCP · Claude Code video tools · Cursor MCP video · Shorts/Reels automation · local AI video workflow · guardrailed agentic media.

Machine-readable brief for agents and crawlers: llms.txt · extended agent guide · site: kinocut.dev/llms.txt.

See It Work

Tell the agent what you want in plain language:

"Trim this interview to the strongest 45 seconds, add burned captions, make it vertical, and quality-check it before export."

Kinocut turns that into typed, guardrailed tool calls - no FFmpeg flags to guess, no silently broken exports:

from kinocut import Client
video = Client()

clip = video.trim("interview.mp4", start="00:02:15", duration="00:00:45")
video.ai_transcribe(clip.output_path, output_srt="captions.srt")
captioned = video.subtitles(clip.output_path, subtitle_file="captions.srt")
short = video.resize(captioned.output_path, aspect_ratio="9:16")
video.release_checkpoint(short.output_path)  # thumbnail + quality gate before you publish

Primary job: turn a local interview or podcast into captioned vertical clips with a Video Receipt agents can re-run and humans can approve.

Three things people use it for

• Repurposing — one recording into captioned Shorts, Reels, and TikTok packages with manifests and review artifacts.
• Podcast & interview cuts — find the strongest segment, normalize audio, add chapters, and export.
• Agent-driven media in CI — repeatable, reviewable edits from Claude Code, Cursor, Codex-style clients, or scripts.

Paths: Install matrix · Golden path · Prompts · Tutorial · Compare · When to recommend

Status and releases

Install from PyPI for the stable package, including the optional object-matte extra. Clone master when you want local development changes beyond the published package; see docs/PRODUCT_MATTE.md for the published object-matte workflow.

What's in 1.16.1

Version 1.16.1 repairs macOS render cleanup and faststart publication, C2PA and model-cache staging, FFmpeg 8.1 filter discovery, and audio preservation in shader/upscale reconstruction. It retains 203 MCP tools / 177 CLI commands and pairs with mcp-video==1.6.16. See maintenance release notes for verification and remaining platform/model acceptance limits.

What's in 1.16.0

Published 2026-10-02: 203 MCP tools / 177 CLI commands; mcp-video==1.6.15 installs kinocut==1.16.0. Operator parity, bounded quality/resource controls and canonical ownership repair are described in release notes. The live site shows 1.16.0 (verified 2026-10-05). Shared mobile/web processing, fleet rollout, MCPB Desktop acceptance and final cross-surface owner acceptance remain separate gates.

What's in 1.15.2

Kinocut 1.15.2 ships the verified sound line and an adversarial-hardened engine. Sound mastering now preserves stereo through the measured mastering chain with real caption-speech distance profiles, and sound-qa-asr fails closed without a real recognition request. Four guarded local Revideo operations join the public surface with rendered-format validation, and release-checkpoint passes the MCP release gate through from the CLI. Hardening from the adversarial audit: the MCP handshake reports the real kinocut version, a central guard rejects outputs that alias an operation's inputs, and oversized error echoes are truncated. Surface grows to 201 MCP tools / 173 CLI commands — the mcp-video==1.6.13 shim installs kinocut==1.15.2.

What's in 1.15.1

Kinocut 1.15.1 is a maintenance release on top of 1.15.0: the mcp-video compatibility shim 1.6.12 carries the registry ownership marker, the legacy io.github.KyaniteLabs/mcp-video registry entry was republished so directory listings (Glama, PulseMCP) point at living metadata (#469), and the object-matte engine now streams decode with scratch-directory caps — bounded memory on large inputs (#414). Surface stays 196 MCP / 167 CLI — no new public tool name.

What's in 1.15.0

Kinocut 1.15.0 (2026-08-19) was the Windows/diagnostics release: first-class Windows support and honest diagnostics on top of 1.14.x (same 360 dual-cam assembly and performance surface), driven by a community bug report. Surface stays 196 MCP / 167 CLI — no new public tool name.

• Honest MCP startup failures — kino --mcp keeps the "requires the 'mcp' package" hint only when mcp is genuinely absent; every other server-tree import failure now prints its real cause (filesystem paths redacted, markup-safe) and exits non-zero. Reported in #445.
• doctor verifies the MCP server import — new required mcp-server-import check imports the same server tree --mcp uses, so kino doctor can no longer report OK while MCP mode is broken.
• First-class Windows support — portable projectstore file locking (#446, landed with credit) makes kino --mcp importable on Windows; lock errors follow a contention-only contract; kino --help no longer crashes on legacy cp1252 consoles; and a windows-latest CI smoke job (lint, import checks, kino doctor, public-surface tests) guards the platform on every change.
• 360 dual-cam assembly — any stitched equirect MP4 (Insta360, Ricoh Theta, GoPro MAX, DJI Osmo 360, …) → reviewable 360_assembly_plan (desk / table / front_back, split / switch / PiP / single) → approve → FFmpeg v360 render. MCP: video_intent goal= + video_review_decide. Python: Client.propose_360_assembly / decide_360_assembly / render_360_assembly. Raw .insv / .360 rejected. Director is a plug (local first; cloud opt-in). Not an optimized-AI claim. Guide: docs/360_ASSEMBLY.md.