InstantClips MCP

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InstantClips turns an e-commerce product into short-form vertical video for TikTok, Instagram Reels and Stories. It runs a hosted MCP server, so Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, the Claude app, ChatGPT or any other MCP client can do what the web app does: import a product, draft the plan, and generate the video.

This is not a text-to-video generator. InstantClips reads the product page — photos, price, details — and builds the ad from what is actually there. The plan is written first and shown to you; the video follows the plan. That is why it is cheap enough to run across a catalogue, and why the result is the product you sell rather than a guess at it.

Free to start: the welcome credits cover the first video, and there is no card to enter. After that, one-time credit packs, or an Agency membership for anyone running several brands. See pricing.

• Where it fits. Beside a scheduler (Postiz, Buffer) that posts what comes back. Beside an attribution tool that tells you which hook worked. Instead of an editor when you have a product page and no footage.
• Not for. Cinematic hero films. A presenter reading your script. Horizontal 4K. Products with no page and no photos.
• Built for. Shopify sellers, dropshippers, brands and agencies running social for several stores at once.

The product server stays hosted. This repository contains its connection guide, registry metadata, example HTTP client and a small open-source stdio adapter for clients that cannot connect to a remote server directly. The adapter answers initialization, ping and tool discovery from a generated snapshot, then sends authenticated tool calls to the hosted endpoint. The hosted server remains the source of truth; the product implementation is not duplicated here.

Endpoint

Paste one address into your assistant and sign in when it asks. That is the whole setup. The first time it calls, the server sends you to sign in to InstantClips and approve the assistant; there are no keys to copy. Every assistant you approve is listed under Authorized apps in settings, where you can disconnect it.

The connection is to your own account: same brands, products, credits and plan limits as the web app. Signing in creates an account if you do not have one, with credits for the first video.

Opening the endpoint in a browser returns the setup page rather than a protocol error, with one-click install buttons for Cursor and VS Code.

Install

Connect to the hosted endpoint directly whenever your client supports Streamable HTTP; it takes you through sign-in on first use. Use a token and the stdio adapter (under "No browser?" below) only for scripts and automated runners that cannot open a sign-in page.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http --scope user instantclips https://app.instantclips.ai/mcp

Then run /mcp inside Claude Code and choose instantclips to sign in. --scope user adds it to every project; without it, Claude Code adds a server only to the folder you run the command in.

Codex

Add to ~/.codex/config.toml, which the Codex CLI, the Codex IDE extension and the ChatGPT desktop app all read:

[mcp_servers.instantclips]
url = "https://app.instantclips.ai/mcp"

Then run codex mcp login instantclips to sign in.

Cursor and VS Code

One-click install buttons are on the setup page. They open the app, add InstantClips, and sign you in on first use.

Claude app

1. In Customize › Connectors, select + › Add custom connector, paste https://app.instantclips.ai/mcp and select Add.
2. Select Connect and sign in to InstantClips.
3. In a conversation, turn InstantClips on under + › Connectors.

On a Team or Enterprise plan, an owner adds it first under Organization settings › Connectors, and each member then connects it in Customize › Connectors.

ChatGPT

1. On chatgpt.com, turn on Developer mode in Settings › Security and login.
2. Open chatgpt.com/plugins, select + and create an app for https://app.instantclips.ai/mcp with OAuth, then sign in to InstantClips when asked.
3. In a conversation, choose Developer mode from the + menu and select InstantClips.

On a Business, Enterprise or Edu workspace, an admin creates the app under Workspace settings › Apps › Create and publishes it for the workspace.

In ChatGPT, attach the product photos to the conversation and ask for the video: the plugin takes attachments directly (image_files on create_product_from_images, add_image_files on update_product), so photos need no adapter and no token there.

Menu names are the apps' own as of September 2026. If they have moved, Claude's custom connector guide and OpenAI's developer mode guide have the current ones.

Any other MCP client or agent

OpenClaw, Hermes, or an agent you wrote yourself: point it at the address over Streamable HTTP. The server announces its sign-in flow the standard way, so a client that follows the spec needs nothing else. Anything that cannot open a sign-in page uses a token instead, below.

No browser? Use an access token

Scripts, CI jobs and agents that cannot open a sign-in page authenticate with a long-lived token instead. Mint one at app.instantclips.ai/settings#ai-access. It gives full access to your account, so keep it out of anything you commit.

With a token, the same clients look like this:

# Claude Code
claude mcp add --transport http --scope user instantclips https://app.instantclips.ai/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"

# Codex, in ~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.instantclips]
url = "https://app.instantclips.ai/mcp"
http_headers = { Authorization = "Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" }

To keep the token out of the Codex file, swap the header for bearer_token_env_var = "INSTANTCLIPS_TOKEN" and export it in your shell instead. Any other client sends an Authorization: Bearer header. Nothing on the wire is InstantClips-specific. The chat apps always have a browser to sign in with, so they use the steps above rather than a token.

Stdio-only clients and headless runners

The instantclips-mcp npm package is a thin stdio-to-HTTPS adapter. It serves initialization and tool discovery locally for a fast, credential-free cold start, then reads the token from the environment and sends tool calls to InstantClips:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instantclips": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "instantclips-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "INSTANTCLIPS_TOKEN": "YOUR_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

For an automated connectivity check, including the live tool names:

INSTANTCLIPS_TOKEN="your-token" npx -y instantclips-mcp --check --json

The token is accepted only through INSTANTCLIPS_TOKEN, never as a command-line argument, so it does not appear in the process list. It is required for tool calls, but not for initialize, ping, or tools/list. Node.js 20 or newer is required.

Photos on this machine: the adapter can upload them itself, so a video can be made from files that never left your laptop. Through the adapter, create_product_from_images takes image_paths (paths to the files, up to 9, 8 MB each) in place of image_urls, and update_product takes add_image_paths. The files are packaged and posted straight to InstantClips as the product's photos — nothing is downloaded from anywhere. Drag the files into a client that hands the assistant their paths (Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, terminal agents) and say what you want made. Send image_paths on its own: with hosted image_urls in the same call the adapter refuses rather than dropping the URLs; add hosted photos afterwards with update_product.

Starter prompts

Five to begin with. Swap in a link or a product name.

1. "Make a video ad for this product: [URL]"
2. "Import every product on this collection page and draft plans for all of them. Don't generate anything yet."
3. "Show me the plan for [product] and rewrite the hook to lead with the price."
4. "Make three videos for [URL] with three different hooks, so I can test them."
5. "Which of my brands is this product for? Then make the video."

Tools

The workflow, in order:

1. Import — import_product_from_url for a store page, or create_product_from_images when there is no page to read.
2. Wait for the draft — poll get_product until the import and the plan have finished.
3. Read and steer it — the plan comes back as text for the user to review. update_video_direction changes anything in it, redraft_video_direction asks for another angle.
4. Generate — generate_video, passing expected_credit_cost: the cost the user was told, as get_product reported it. A mismatch is refused without charging.
5. Collect — poll get_video for the finished MP4 and a public share link.

Another video for the same product is the same flow on that product: editing or redrafting opens the next video's draft, and generate_video with no draft renders another take of the last plan. A generated video itself cannot be changed. Every get_product response carries next_step: what to do now.

Brands work the same way: list_brands, create_brand, set_product_brand. Every video is drafted in a brand's voice, so an import whose storefront matches no existing brand stops and asks rather than guessing.

Each tool's exact parameters are published by the hosted server. The generated manifest/instantclips-mcp.json snapshot lets stdio clients and registries inspect those same schemas without a credential. Maintainers refresh it with INSTANTCLIPS_TOKEN="..." npm run sync:manifest; npm run check:manifest fails when the committed snapshot differs from the live server. Run python example.py tools below when you specifically want to print the live schemas over HTTP.

Credits

Importing a product, drafting the plan and editing it are all free. generate_video is the only tool that spends credits, and it requires your explicit go-ahead — the tools report the cost first, and generate_video takes that number back as expected_credit_cost, refusing a launch whose cost has changed. An agent cannot quietly run up a bill. See pricing.

example.py

A dependency-free MCP client — Python 3.9+, standard library only, no pip install. It authenticates with a token, since a script has no browser to sign in with.

export INSTANTCLIPS_TOKEN="your-token"

python example.py tools                 # every tool, with its live input schema
python example.py call list_brands '{}' # call one tool with JSON arguments

tools is the one to run first: it prints the real parameter names and types for every tool, which is what you need before scripting the workflow above.

Links

• instantclips.ai/automate — what the automation is for: a real result made from a store page, starter prompts, the tools in order, and the rules. It does not repeat the setup; this file and the app's setup page are where that lives.
• app.instantclips.ai/llms.txt — machine-readable description of the product and the tool sequence
• Terms · Privacy

Registry

server.json is this server's entry in the official MCP registry, which the other directories ingest from. One ai.instantclips/instantclips entry carries both the hosted endpoint in remotes and the stdio adapter in packages, so a host can choose the transport it supports without creating two identities for the same tool surface.

The npm package's mcpName must exactly match that registry name. The repository link points to the open-source adapter; the hosted product implementation is not in this repository.

The ai.instantclips namespace is the reverse-DNS of the domain, which requires publishing under DNS or HTTP domain auth rather than GitHub auth. Authenticating with GitHub instead would force the entry into io.github.instantstudioai/... and give up the branded namespace.

Publish the npm package first, then re-publish this same registry entry with mcp-publisher publish after bumping its version. Domain authentication keeps the branded ai.instantclips namespace; do not replace it with an io.github.* name. The signing key stays out of the repository — .gitignore covers *.pem, and a committed private key is a published one.

npm is published from GitHub Actions, not from a laptop. Commit the version bump (package.json, server.json, and the pins in test/shim.test.js), then push a tag named for it (git tag v1.7.2 && git push origin main v1.7.2); .github/workflows/publish.yml runs the tests and publishes through npm's trusted publishing, with no npm token and no browser confirmation. The job stops if the tag does not match package.json's version. The package's trusted publisher on npmjs.com names this repository and publish.yml, so renaming the workflow file breaks publishing.

A new version can take several minutes to appear on npm, and the registry refuses an entry whose npm version it cannot find ("version … was not found"; nothing changes). Run the mcp-publisher step once https://registry.npmjs.org/instantclips-mcp/<version> answers.

Log in and publish in one command — the registry token expires five minutes after login — and the domain is verified over HTTP, not DNS: instantclips.ai/.well-known/mcp-registry-auth on the marketing site serves this key's public half (v=MCPv1; k=ed25519; p=…), and there is no TXT record, so login dns fails with "no MCP public key found".

mcp-publisher login http --domain instantclips.ai \
  --private-key "$(openssl pkey -in key.pem -text -noout | awk '/priv:/{f=1;next} /pub:/{f=0} f' | tr -d ' :\n')" \
  && mcp-publisher publish

test/shim.test.js pins the snapshot's server version and server.json's version; a release moves both.

glama.json is the separate, Glama-specific file that claims the listing there. A server under an organisation rather than a personal account can only be claimed with that file present. It carries ownership only. In Glama's Dockerfile form, use build steps ["npm install --omit=dev"], CMD arguments ["node", "./bin/instantclips-mcp.js"], and any dummy value for the required INSTANTCLIPS_TOKEN placeholder. Glama's initialization and tool-quality checks use the bundled manifest and never transmit that placeholder upstream. Do not put a real account token into a third-party build sandbox.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. The license covers this repository's contents; use of the hosted service is governed by the Terms of Service.