OpenChatCut

Open-source AI agent video editor with a real timeline

Productivity

Open Source

GitHub

Video

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I like that the agent edits a real, reversible timeline instead of handing back a flattened export. Keeping captions, music, transitions, and keyframes visible makes this feel much easier to trust.

The 'edits proposed for review before applied' loop on a real timeline is what makes this feel usable rather than a black box. When an external agent works over MCP (say Claude Code), does it get the full timeline state as context each turn or just a diff of the current edit, and where do those proposed-but-unaccepted edits live — in the project file on disk I could version in git, or app-internal state until I accept? I'm trying to gauge whether the whole editing history stays reproducible outside the app.

The real-timeline part is what sells me — chat-only editors feel like a black box, but coming from a DAW world, being able to drop into a multitrack timeline and hand-nudge things after the agent's pass is exactly the workflow I trust. Quick one: how deep does the audio side go — multitrack audio with volume keyframes/ducking, or mostly video-first for now? Local-first + AGPL is a great call btw.

i cut short product demos for social every week and the timeline is always where ai tools fall apart. they generate clips but you can't nudge anything after. agents on a real multitrack timeline over mcp is the missing piece. can claude code drive it today or do i need your chat ui?

Love the local-first approach and the real multitrack timeline finally being usable with AI agents. One thing that would really help me as an editor: a way to version the timeline edits the agents make, so I can diff or roll back specific agent actions when something goes sideways.

The "real multitrack timeline" part is what makes this stand out to me — most AI video tools spit out a black-box render you can't touch, so having the agent edit an actual editable timeline (and local-first) is a much saner workflow. Love that it's AGPL too.

Quick question: since it works with Claude/Codex/MCP agents — do I bring my own API key/model, or is there a local-model option for people who want it fully offline?

The part I'd poke at is how the agent addresses clips through MCP. Every time we've handed an agent a stateful document as tools, state drift is the thing that bites: it reasons over a snapshot it read a couple calls back, so 'trim the third clip to 5s' hits the wrong clip once the timeline moved underneath it. Are the edits keyed to stable clip IDs it can re-reference, or to positions and timecodes that shift when tracks change?

Local-first multitrack editing with agent support sounds genuinely useful. One thing that would make a huge difference for me is a simple undo history that spans across agent-driven edits, so I can roll back a whole AI cleanup pass without losing my manual tweaks from before.

Love the local-first approach and editable exports being free. One thing that would help a lot is proxy media generation so 4K timelines stay snappy on lower end machines. Would also be great if the AI agents could remember project wide style choices between sessions so you don't have to re explain your color grade each time.

honestly the multitrack timeline with MCP agents sounds super cool, but one thing i'd really want is a way to save and share edit "recipes" or agent prompts so i can reuse the same workflow across projects. basically a little library for your favorite prompt chains that you can drop in whenever.

finally a chat based editor that doesn't lock my timeline away, ran a quick cut with claude and the export actually stayed editable which is more than i expected from something free.

A collab mode would be huge, like letting two people hop on the same timeline remotely with comments pinned to specific clips. Since the agents already touch the project files, feels like a natural next step for a local-first tool.

Would love to see a simple preset system for common edits like "remove filler words" or "add jump cuts" so I don't have to prompt the agents for the same workflow every time. Could be a small dropdown that bundles the right tool calls together.

The local-first approach with real multitrack timeline support is such an underrated detail, makes it feel like an actual editor instead of a chat toy.

Love the local-first angle and the multitrack timeline with real agent integration. One thing that would make a huge difference for me: a built-in proxy/media cache so 4K footage doesn't bog down the timeline when the agents are running analysis in the background. Would make the whole editing flow way smoother on mid-range hardware.

Love the local-first approach and editable exports being free. One thing that would really help adoption is a built-in shareable project link feature where collaborators can open the same timeline in a read-only browser view without installing anything, perfect for getting quick feedback from clients or teammates before they commit to the setup.

Love the local-first approach and the multitrack timeline is exactly what I was missing. One thing that would really help: add a visual diff or changelog view when the AI agents make edits, so I can quickly review what Codex or Claude changed before approving. Right now trusting invisible agents on a timeline feels a bit opaque.

finally something that doesnt lock your timeline behind a subscription, ran a quick cut with claude and it actually respected my existing tracks instead of nuking them

Love the open-source approach and the multi-agent timeline idea. One thing that would help adoption a lot is adding a simple share/export-to-web preset that bakes the project into a viewable link, so non-technical folks can preview cuts without installing anything. That alone would make sharing work-in-progress much easier.