Studio pipeline

AI assistants

An AI assistant can work with Phoenix: look at your document, tell you what is in it or wrong with it, and make changes for you, such as adding layers, drawing shapes, setting up tweens or tidying the library. Every change goes into the undo history, so one Ctrl+Z takes back what you did not want.

Phoenix speaks the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which assistants such as Claude Desktop and Claude Code use to work with other programs. The assistant runs on your computer and talks to Phoenix there.

Open Claude Code from Phoenix

If you have Claude Code installed, choose Commands › Open Claude Code. The Claude Code panel opens with Claude Code running in your document's folder and already connected to this Phoenix, so you can start asking it about your document straight away. You type, read its answers and sign in to your Claude account in the panel's terminal; Phoenix only starts it.

The panel floats at first; dock it like any other panel. In it:

Keys go to Claude Code while the panel has focus, including Tab, Esc and the keys that are Phoenix shortcuts elsewhere. Click the stage to give them back to Phoenix.
Drag to select text, double-click to select a word. Ctrl+Shift+C copies, or Ctrl+C while text is selected. Ctrl+V or Ctrl+Shift+V pastes; on macOS, Cmd+C and Cmd+V.
The mouse wheel, or Shift+Page Up and Page Down, scrolls back through what has gone off the top.
Restart ends Claude Code and starts it again. When Claude Code ends, press Enter in the panel to start it again.

Phoenix lets the Claude Code it started connect without asking, and only that one: any other assistant is still asked about. Stop in the status bar disconnects it, and after that it has to be allowed like any other. You do not need to turn anything on in Preferences for this.

Connect Claude Desktop

Add Phoenix to Claude Desktop's configuration file (Settings › Developer › Edit Config in Claude Desktop) and restart it:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "phoenix": {
      "command": "C:\\Users\\you\\AppData\\Local\\Phoenix\\current\\Phoenix.exe",
      "args": ["--mcp"]
    }
  }
}

On macOS the command is /Applications/Phoenix.app/Contents/MacOS/Phoenix. When Claude needs Phoenix, it starts it, and Phoenix asks whether to allow it.

Connect Claude Code yourself

To add Phoenix to Claude Code for every session rather than opening it from Phoenix:

claude mcp add phoenix -- "C:\Users\you\AppData\Local\Phoenix\current\Phoenix.exe" --mcp

Work with the window you already have open

By default an assistant that starts Phoenix gets a Phoenix window of its own. To have it work in the Phoenix you already have open, turn on Let AI assistants connect (MCP) in Edit › Preferences. Then Phoenix --mcp connects to your open Phoenix instead of starting another. Only programs on your own computer can connect; the Port setting is there in case another program already uses the default, 47290.

Staying in control

It asks first: The first time an assistant connects, Phoenix names it and asks whether to allow it. Nothing happens until you say yes, and you are asked again after you stop it.
You see it working: While an assistant is connected, the status bar says so and shows what it is doing. Click Stop there to disconnect it at once.
Everything can be undone: Each change is named AI: ... in Edit › Undo. When an assistant makes several changes for one request, it can group them so they undo together.
Your files are safe: An assistant works on the open document only. Before it writes a file anywhere, such as an exported image, Phoenix asks you. It cannot save over your document; you save when you are happy.
Read-only documents stay that way: A document opened from a newer Phoenix, shown as read-only, cannot be changed by an assistant.
A record is kept: Every request is written to mcp.log in Phoenix's local application data folder, with the assistant's name and whether it worked.

What an assistant can do

To look	What it gets
Document summary	Stage size, frame rate, scenes, layers and the library with how often each item is used
Timeline	Every layer and keyframe, with tweens, eases, labels and scripts, in the scene or any symbol
Elements	What is on a keyframe: shapes, instances, text, with their positions and color effects
Render frame	A picture of any frame, so the assistant can see the artwork
Check document	Damage, unused library items, empty and hidden layers, artwork off the stage, huge bitmaps and very heavy shapes
Color script	A strip of small pictures across the scene, one every so many frames or one at each label, to judge color and light over time

To change	What it does
Documents	Open a document, or start a new one
Layers	Add, rename, show, hide, lock, change their kind, delete
Frames	Insert keyframes and frames, remove frames, label frames, add classic, shape and motion tweens with eases
Artwork	Draw shapes from path data, add text, place symbol instances, move, scale, turn, tint and delete them
Library	Convert artwork to symbols, rename and move items into folders, tidy loose items into folders by kind
Bounce	Make a symbol instance bounce, with eases and squash and stretch, in one step
In-betweens	Fill the frames between two keyframes with drawings of their own, eased, on ones or twos, ready to redraw by hand
Pose cycle	Turn a few poses into a looping walk or run on a new layer, each pose held as long as you like, moving across the stage as it goes
Lip sync	Key a mouth symbol to a line of dialogue, listening to a library sound or reading Rhubarb or Papagayo cues, with a mouth chart
Apply palette	Recolor the scene, a symbol or one layer, and the symbols it shows, to the nearest colors of a palette
Motion graphics	List and set behaviors on instances, operators on shapes and letter animators on text, with keyed settings; make track mattes and adjustment layers
Templates	Fill in a template symbol's text and color fields on an instance, and render a movie for each row of data (after asking you where)
Rename to a convention	Rename layers, symbols or instance names to one style, such as snake_case with a prefix
Show and export	Go to a frame or into a symbol so you can see it; export a frame as a PNG (after asking you)

Things to ask

"What's in this document? Summarize the scenes and layers."
"Find everything unused in the library, and tidy the rest into folders."
"Check this file for problems before I send it."
"Add a layer called Background and fill the stage with a dark blue gradient-like stack of rectangles."
"Make the ball on the Ball layer bounce three times with squash and stretch."
"Fill in the in-betweens on the Arm layer from frame 1 to 9, easing out, on twos."
"Turn the four poses on the Walk layer into a walk cycle that crosses the stage over three seconds."
"Lip sync the Mouth layer to the sound Line01.wav."
"Show me a color script of this scene, then recolor it to these five colors: ..."
"Rename the layers in this symbol to say what is on them."
"Make the logo pulse and put eight copies of it in a ring that slowly turns."
"Make lower thirds for these five people, each in their team's color, and render them as MP4s."
"Render frame 12 and tell me whether the character's arm reads clearly."

Planned

An assistant panel docked inside Phoenix, so you can ask without a separate window.