video-harness

DaVinci Resolve harness and MCP server for timeline placement, folder import, clip color, and typed metadata markers.

It does not wrap the whole Resolve API. Agents get a small job surface: inspect, import, place, color, mark. Release 0.1.2: changelog. MIT. Attributions.

Docs

Page Contents
Setup Install, which Resolve you have, start the Lua bridge
Architecture Transports (Studio / HTTP / Lua file-queue), API limits
MCP and agents MCP tools, client config, agent prompts
Grok Wire this MCP into Grok and prompt import / place / color
Workflows Import folders, place clips, proxies, marker types
Troubleshooting Doctor output, Scripts menu, sandbox, limitation dialog
License and attributions MIT, Blackmagic, MCP, dHash, persona sources

Quick start (free Resolve) 

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
video-harness install-bridge
video-harness doctor
  1. Open Resolve and a project.
  2. Workspace → Scripts → Utility → video_harness_bridge (click once). No window — that is expected.
  3. video-harness doctor → "bridge": { "ok": true } with bridge: "0.1.1" and set_clip_color in methods.
  4. video-harness inspect. After install-bridge, click Utility again so the running script matches disk.

App Store (“Lite”) vs website install: see Setup. Lite is sandboxed; the website free build is the better $0 option.

How it talks to Resolve 

Agent / CLI  →  Harness  →  Studio scriptapp
                          →  or Lua script inside Resolve (file queue)

Free editions cannot be driven from an external scriptapp. The Lua script runs from Workspace → Scripts and polls JSON under the Resolve config dir (container path on App Store Lite).

MCP 

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "video-harness": {
      "command": "/ABS/PATH/TO/video-harness/.venv/bin/video-harness",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

In Grok: /mcps → add or enable video-harness. Full tool list: MCP and agents. Using Grok day to day: Grok.

What Resolve will not do through this API

  • Razor, trim, nudge, or move an existing timeline item (place is append-at-frame; lift is delete).
  • Script GUIs (UIManager) on free, since 19.1.
  • Out-of-process scripting on free.
  • LinkProxyMedia is not exposed yet — importing a proxy folder edits those files as sources.

Source

github.com/sakethramanujam/video-harness · MIT License · Attributions