API vs MCP vs app
Choose between the editor, the MCP connector and the REST API.
Typecut has three doors into the same projects. Pick by who is driving.
| Editor | MCP connector | REST API | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who drives | You, by hand | An AI agent in a conversation | Your own code |
| Sign in with | Your account | OAuth, or an API key | An API key (tc_live_…) |
| Plan | Any | Any with OAuth. A hand-made key needs Creator or up | Creator and up |
| Best for | Directing, fine edits, export | "Make me a video about…" from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor | Integrations, batch jobs, CI |
| Costs | Plan credits | The same plan credits | The same plan credits |
Choose the editor when
You want to see the film and adjust it with your hands. Every project an agent or script makes opens in the editor too.
Choose MCP when
You want an agent to do the work. It plans, writes, checks and renders, and it explains what it did. You do not write any code. Start at Connect your AI.
Choose the REST API when
You are building a product or pipeline and you want fixed, predictable calls. You decide each request. See the API reference.
How they fit together
Every MCP tool forwards to a /v1 API route and carries your credential along. Sign-in, plan checks, validation, credits and errors all happen in the API, so the two cannot disagree. That means:
- Anything an agent made is a normal project that you can open, edit and render in the editor.
- A project you made over the API shows up for an agent to continue.
- Prices are the same on every door. Tools that spend credits say so in their description.
If you can do it through MCP, you can do it over HTTP, and the reverse is not always true. MCP tools are shaped for agents, with fewer fields, clearer errors and a result an agent can read.
Three MCP doors
The main address, https://app.typecut.ai/api/v1/mcp, lists a short set of tools by step and answers every other tool by name. The studio address lists the tools for agents that write scene HTML themselves, and the old full menu is kept for clients that cannot call unlisted tools. See Connect your AI.