MCP Server

Beta. MCP support is an early feature and is still being shaken out, so expect rough edges. The entity model below is stable and worth understanding now. For developers -- if you use the app through its screens, you do not need anything on this page: you navigate by menus, not paths.

Ordinary Animator exposes an MCP server (Model Context Protocol) so an external AI tool such as Claude Code can read and change your production data programmatically. The in-app AI Assistant uses the same addressing scheme under the hood.

The entity path scheme

Every entity is addressed by a hierarchical path. project on its own (no leading slash) lists all your projects; every other path starts with /:

Entity	Path
All projects	project
Project	/project/{projectId}
Episode	/project/{projectId}/episode/{episodeId}
Scene	/project/{projectId}/episode/{episodeId}/scene/{sceneId}
Shot	/project/{projectId}/episode/{episodeId}/scene/{sceneId}/shot/{shotId}
Character	/project/{projectId}/character/{characterId}
Location	/project/{projectId}/location/{locationId}
Prop	/project/{projectId}/prop/{propId}
Agent	/project/{projectId}/agent/{agentId}
Recipe	/project/{projectId}/recipe/{recipeId}
Step	/project/{projectId}/recipe/{recipeId}/step/{stepId}
Idea	/project/{projectId}/idea/{ideaId}
Track	/project/{projectId}/swimlane/{swimlaneId}
Arc	/project/{projectId}/swimlane/{swimlaneId}/arc/{arcId}

A Timeline track is addressed as swimlane -- the API keeps the old name for the rows so that existing tools and stored data keep working.

These paths mirror the entity hierarchy. A tool uses them to fetch data, create entities, and navigate ("go to character kira"). Start from project to discover your project IDs, then drill down.

Connecting

You connect as yourself, with a browser sign-in -- there is no key to copy and paste, and no configuration file holding a secret.

Point your MCP client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop) at the Ordinary Animator MCP server. The client registers itself, then opens your browser on an Ordinary Animator consent page. Sign in with the same Google account you use for the app, read what the client is asking for, and approve. The client is handed a token of its own, and every call it makes from then on acts as you and reaches only your own data.

Tokens refresh themselves, so you sign in once rather than every session.

See Entities & the Data Model for the concepts behind the hierarchy and the property model.