Labsco
MCP SERVER

DaVinci Resolve MCP

by samuelgursky ↗

Control DaVinci Resolve from an AI assistant — media pool, timelines, markers, grading, Fusion, Fairlight and render queue — with camera originals treated as read-only throughout.

Video Generation & Editing
Summary
A first-pass assistant editor: ingest, sync, organize, string out, flag problems.

It is explicit about where it stops — it will not choose the best take, cut to music, or judge whether an edit is good, and every destructive action is plan, review, confirm. What you get back is a starting point you cut, not a finished cut.

What it is

An MCP server over DaVinci Resolve's official Scripting API, with guarded workflow helpers layered on top. It covers editing, media pool organization, render setup, review markers, grading, Fusion, Fairlight, project lifecycle and source-safe media analysis.

What you get
  • Two server modes: a compound server with 36 tools where related operations sit behind action parameters to keep context small, and a granular mode with 353 tools — one per Resolve API method
  • App and project control: launch and reconnect, page switching, project CRUD, project folders, databases, cloud project wrappers, settings, presets and archives
  • Media pool and ingest: safe import, image sequences, multicam prep timelines, bin organization, metadata normalization, marks, annotations, and relink, proxy and full-resolution guards
  • Media analysis that reads source files and writes reports to sidecar or scratch directories only — including 2-pop and slate-clap sync-event detection, plus writeback of analysis summaries and source-time markers into the Resolve project
  • Timeline editing and conform: track and item probing, title text scans and writes, copy/move/duplicate helpers, ripple insert, gaps and overlaps, source ranges, and checked interchange import and export
  • Colour, Fusion and audio: node graph probing, CDL validation, grade copy, DRX and LUT helpers, Gallery stills, Fusion comps with validated connections, and Fairlight track probes with guarded audio property writes
  • Render and deliver: format and codec matrix probing, render settings validation, queued job lifecycle checks and guarded Quick Export
  • An optional second, Node-based advanced server with 18 tools that reads and edits Resolve `.drp`, `.drt` and `.drx` files with no Resolve running at all
  • A loopback-only local browser control panel for inspecting Resolve state and drilling into analysed clips
Requirements

DaVinci Resolve 18.5+ on macOS, Windows or Linux, and Python 3.10+ (3.10-3.12 is the lowest-risk range). Studio supports external scripting once Preferences > General > External scripting using is set to Local. The free edition does not — Blackmagic gates external scripting to Studio — but it is reachable through an in-app bridge installed with `python scripts/install_resolve_bridge.py` and launched from the ungated Workspace > Scripts menu. Setup is `npx davinci-resolve-mcp setup`, which builds a virtual environment and can configure Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Continue, Cline, Roo Code, OpenCode, Codex CLI and JetBrains IDEs. The core install is deliberately small; ffmpeg on PATH is the single most useful optional addition, and each analysis feature that needs a missing library refuses with its own install line rather than guessing. Source media is treated as immutable: analysis writes reports to sidecar, scratch or project analysis directories, and confirmed metadata publishing writes only to Resolve's project database.

Setup effort

One command — npx davinci-resolve-mcp setup