AI Console and MCP server

The AI Console

The AI Console is a chat panel inside SVG Editor. Open it from the ✨ AI button next to the 💬 Feedback button (bottom-left), or from the Window menu. Type what you want in plain language; the answer is applied to the document in front of you and every change is undoable.

Ask for a single shape ("a red hexagon with a soft shadow") or restyle a whole document ("make everything pastel and rounded"). The result is real, layer-aware vectors — not a bitmap — so you keep editing with the Pen, Pathfinder and palettes as usual.

Choose the engine

Settings ▸ AI:

• Built-in — the default. Uses Rainbow Factory's server, no key or account needed.
• Claude (own key) — paste an Anthropic API key (sk-ant-…).
• OpenAI (own key) — paste an OpenAI API key (sk-…).
• Gemini (own key) — paste a Google AI key (AIza…).

With your own key you can also edit the Base prompt, the standing instructions sent with every request — house style, default colours, language, anything you always want applied.

Turn the MCP server on

1. Install SVG Editor from the Mac App Store and open it once.
2. Open Settings ▸ MCP Server and turn on Allow external control (MCP / AppleScript).
3. In the Client tab pick your client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, VS Code, Codex, Antigravity); the Configuration tab shows the ready-to-paste config with the correct path to the app.
4. The first time a client drives the app, macOS may ask to allow Automation — accept it (if you refuse, re-enable it in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Automation).

The MCP server is the app itself, launched with --mcp-stdio. The executable path shown below assumes the app is in /Applications.

Claude Code

Run once in a terminal (add --scope user to make it available in every project), or paste the JSON below into .mcp.json in the project folder.

claude mcp add svgeditor -- "/Applications/SVG Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/SVG Editor" --mcp-stdio

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "svgeditor": {
      "command": "/Applications/SVG Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/SVG Editor",
      "args": ["--mcp-stdio"]
    }
  }
}

Then, in a Claude Code session, ask for something and watch SVG Editor: "open the front document and list what's in it", "add a title in the top-left corner". Claude Code launches SVG Editor if it is not running.

Claude Desktop

Add the same mcpServers block to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json and restart Claude Desktop. The SVG Editor tools appear in the tools menu of every chat.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "svgeditor": {
      "command": "/Applications/SVG Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/SVG Editor",
      "args": ["--mcp-stdio"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code and Antigravity

VS Code: add to .vscode/mcp.json in the workspace, or to the user-level file opened by the MCP: Open User Configuration command. Antigravity: paste the mcpServers block above into its MCP configuration file (Settings ▸ MCP Servers ▸ edit the configuration).

{
  "servers": {
    "svgeditor": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "/Applications/SVG Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/SVG Editor",
      "args": ["--mcp-stdio"]
    }
  }
}

Codex CLI

Add to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.svgeditor]
command = "/Applications/SVG Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/SVG Editor"
args = ["--mcp-stdio"]

The 47 tools

Call svg_guide first when drawing anything non-trivial: it returns a usage guide for the LLM (topics: quickstart, bezier, brushes, booleans, gradients, text, engine). Calls are serialised one at a time with a 45 s timeout; if no document is open one is created; every result reports selection_count and the active engine.

Document

Create

Select & arrange

Style

Effects

Paths

Text

Brushes

Organise

Advanced

AppleScript and Illustrator scripts

The same switch enables AppleScript control (tell application "SVG Editor" to do script …) and the AI Script Console runs Illustrator-compatible .jsx ExtendScript unchanged. svg_run_js exposes the same bridge to MCP clients.