manim-mcp

MCP server that generates 3Blue1Brown-style math animation videos with Manim directly inside Claude. Videos render with AI-narrated voiceover and play inline in the chat.

Quick Start

1. Add to Claude Desktop

Open Settings > Developer > Edit Config and add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "manim": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "manim-mcp@latest", "--stdio"]
    }
  }
}

2. Restart Claude Desktop

That's it. Ask Claude to "create a video explaining the Pythagorean theorem" and watch it render.

First run takes ~2 minutes to auto-install Python dependencies, TTS models, and LaTeX. Subsequent runs are fast.

Features

• Multi-scene video generation with parallel rendering and scene-level caching
• AI voiceover narration synced to animations (Kokoro TTS, runs 100% locally)
• 20+ language support — English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Hindi, and more
• Built-in video player renders inline in Claude Desktop
• Comprehensive Manim reference library produces high-quality 3b1b-style animations
• Speculative TTS pre-synthesis — voiceovers are generated while scenes render
• Auto-fixes common Manim code mistakes before rendering

How it Works

You: "create a video on eigenvalues"

Claude:
  1. Loads Manim reference guidelines (get_manim_reference)
  2. Plans 2-4 scenes with narration scripts
  3. Writes Manim Python code for each scene
  4. Calls render_video with all scenes
     -> TTS pre-synthesizes all voiceovers
     -> scenes render in parallel
     -> concatenated into one video
  5. Inline video player appears in chat

Requirements

• Node.js 18+ — for running the MCP server
• Python 3.12+ — for Manim rendering (auto-installed into ~/.manim-mcp/.venv)
• ffmpeg — for video concatenation (brew install ffmpeg on macOS)

Everything else (Manim, voiceover, TTS models, LaTeX) is automatically installed on first run.

Optional: Premium Voice

For premium multi-language voiceover via ElevenLabs, add your API key:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "manim": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "manim-mcp@latest", "--stdio"],
      "env": {
        "ELEVEN_API_KEY": "sk_your_key_here",
        "PREFER_ELEVENLABS": "1"
      }
    }
  }
}

Language Support

| Engine | Languages | Notes | |--------|-----------|-------| | Kokoro (default) | English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese | Local, fast, free | | Piper | German, Russian, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Turkish, Arabic, Hungarian | Local, free | | ElevenLabs | All languages | Requires API key |

Development

git clone https://github.com/zcsabbagh/manim-mcp.git
cd manim-mcp
npm install
npm run build

# Point Claude Desktop at local build:
# "command": "node",
# "args": ["/path/to/manim-mcp/dist/index.js", "--stdio"]

License

MIT