Creator Studio OS Handbook

Creator Studio OS is an MCP server that lets Claude drive eight Apple Creator Studio apps from a single control plane — Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Motion, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers.

It exposes 153 tools across those apps and wires them into cross-app composition protocols. The flagship pipeline, brand-deck-minimal, takes a project.json spec and produces a ProRes MOV in 13 steps: Pixelmator brand cards → Motion lower-thirds → FCPXML → FCP import → Compressor encode.

v2.0.0 — monorepo on npm

As of v2.0.0, Creator Studio OS ships as 10 published packages under the @creator-studio-os npm scope. Install the umbrella CLI for the full surface, or pull in only the apps you need:

# The full CLI — all 8 apps + the protocol runner
npm install -g @creator-studio-os/creator-studio-os

# Or just the FCP authoring layer
npm install @creator-studio-os/fcp

Every package: ≥75% line + branch coverage, MIT licensed, signed npm provenance attestation, macOS-only.

What’s in this handbook

Section	What you’ll find
Getting Started	Install, verify your setup, MCP client config
Usage	Run your first protocol, understand the CLI
Packages	The 10 npm packages — what each one ships
Reference	All 78 tools, grouped by app
Architecture	How the monorepo is structured, data directory layout
Security	Threat model, permissions, what the server does and doesn’t touch
Protocols	Cross-app composition protocols: brand-deck-minimal walkthrough

Quick orientation

• macOS only. AppleScript automation and Compressor’s CLI are macOS-native.
• No network calls. Everything runs on-device. DTD validation reads the bundled DTD from the FCP app bundle.
• macOS Automation permission is required the first time each app is targeted. macOS prompts in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation.
• Data directory defaults to $HOME/creator-studio/ (override with CREATOR_STUDIO_DATA_DIR). All file writes stay inside it.
• 1173 tests across the 10-package workspace. Per-package coverage floor: ≥75% line / ≥75% branch.

Why FCPXML?

Final Cut Pro’s AppleScript dictionary is read-only — you can list libraries and read metadata, but you can’t create timelines via AppleScript. The supported authoring path is FCPXML import: write a well-formed FCPXML 1.14 document and hand it to FCP. Creator Studio OS is the bridge: Claude authors timelines as JSON specs, the server builds and validates FCPXML, then triggers the FCP import.