Splitting animation into an optional extra is the decision that makes this usable: most people want the quantum computation, and the visualisation stack is where cross-platform installs break. The core works immediately with no system dependencies, and there is a one-line check that tells you whether animation is available on your machine. The limits are stated too — Hilbert spaces beyond 1024 dimensions affect performance, and rendering needs real resources.
An MCP server pairing QuTip for quantum computation with Manim for publication-quality visualisation. States are created, evolved and measured server-side and referenced by id, so a multi-step calculation stays coherent across several tool calls.
- State creation across the usual families: pure kets, mixed density matrices, coherent, squeezed, thermal and Fock states — `create_quantum_state`
- Time evolution by four methods: unitary Schrödinger for closed systems, Lindblad master equation for open ones, Monte Carlo trajectories and stochastic continuous measurement — `evolve_quantum_system`
- Measurement and analysis: expectation values, variances, probability distributions and correlation functions — `measure_observable`
- Gate application with visualisation, covering single-qubit Pauli, Hadamard and rotations, two-qubit CNOT, CZ and SWAP, and parameterised rotations — `quantum_gate_sequence`
- Entanglement measures: von Neumann entropy, concurrence, negativity and mutual information — `calculate_entanglement`
- Animations rendered with Manim: Bloch sphere evolution, Wigner functions in phase space, state tomography, circuit execution and energy level populations — `animate_quantum_process`
Python 3.10 or higher. The README's install line names `psianimator-mcp`, which PyPI does not have. The core install covers all the computation and needs no system dependencies. Animation is a separate extra because Manim pulls in LaTeX, FFmpeg and Cairo: core is roughly 100MB against 2GB or more with the full animation stack. After installing, run `psianimator-mcp setup` to create the config directory and check which features are available, and `psianimator-mcp claude-config` to generate the client block. Transport is stdio by default or WebSocket with a host and port, configurable through `PSIANIMATOR_TRANSPORT`, `PSIANIMATOR_HOST` and `PSIANIMATOR_PORT`.
Build from source — clone the repository and build it, then point your client at the binary