v1.4.0

Surehand MCP for Adobe® After Effects® 1.4.0 "Verified": your AI app works inside After Effects and shows you what it did. Every edit reports exactly what changed. Structural changes come with pixel proof. Deliveries are checked against your own spec, templates are stress-tested with worst-case inputs, and renders are checked frame by frame. You can also chat with your AI app inside After Effects.

Updating

• How: click the update banner in the panel, or install the Mac .pkg or Windows Setup.exe below. Then restart After Effects and your AI apps. Until After Effects restarts, it keeps the previous panel, and Surehand says so.
• What carries over: your settings, checkpoints, history and AI app connections. Your token is kept, so a ChatGPT connector URL keeps working.
• Tested: updating and a fresh install, on macOS and on Windows 11, with After Effects 2025 and 2026.

Proof, not promises

• What changed: every edit returns an exact list of what changed in the project, and is one undo step.
• Proven edits (ae_prove_identical): renders frames before and after a change and compares the pixels: identical, or exactly which frames differ.
• Precomp surgery (ae_precomp_surgery):
  • Un-precompose and deep duplicate (copy a comp with all its precomps, unlinked).
  • Every expression reference is rewritten exactly.
  • Each surgery is rehearsed on a scratch copy and applied only when the picture is proven identical.
  • Anything that can't be reproduced is refused, with the reason.
• Project history (ae_project_history): snapshots, and a readable diff between two versions.
• Project X-ray (ae_project_xray): for an inherited project:
  • what reaches the render queue;
  • fragile expression links;
  • missing fonts, footage and plug-ins;
  • what makes it heavy.

Checks before delivery

• Preflight (ae_preflight): a comp and its render, checked against your own delivery spec. It covers sizes and frame rates, safe areas over time, text size and reading speed, missing items, codecs, legal range, loudness, black and frozen frames, and a flash pre-check. Findings come with timecodes.
• Stress test (ae_stress_test):
  • pushes worst-case inputs through a template's Essential Graphics controls and data fields: the longest German and Finnish, Hebrew and Arabic, CJK, Thai, Hindi, emoji, empty text, huge and negative numbers, or your own data;
  • measures overflow in pixels, safe areas, text size, missing glyphs (naming your font and what After Effects fell back to), line breaks, and numbers shown wrong;
  • flags expressions that break in a non-English After Effects;
  • runs on a temporary copy, and your comp is confirmed unchanged afterwards.

Exact control

• Keyframes in whole frames, with exact speed and influence: keyframe tables, copy and audit easing, retime, stagger, conform.
• Measured layout: align and distribute by the layers' real on-screen bounds.
• Text: new text is set left to right unless it's Hebrew or Arabic, whatever your Paragraph panel says, and you can set the direction explicitly.

Versions, languages and formats

• Versions from data (ae_versions_from_data): a version per CSV or JSON row, with every row checked before you queue it.
• Localization round trip (ae_localize):
  • export texts for translators;
  • import them into per-language versions, fitted by your rules;
  • right-to-left done right.
• Reformat (ae_reformat): 9:16, 1:1 and more by the constraints you set, checked on every frame.

Renders

• Render profiler (ae_render_profile): where render time goes, frame by frame and layer by layer. Speed-ups are applied only when proven pixel-identical.
• Farm readiness and chunked renders (ae_farm):
  • a manifest of what a render machine needs, and a check a node can run from a terminal;
  • frame chunks for several processes or machines, with ready-to-run aerender scripts;
  • a verification that every frame is there and right.
• Handoff packager (ae_handoff_package): collect, manifest, and proof that the package opens and renders the same.
• Frame renders: correct colour in 32 bpc projects, and a render never touches your undo history.

The Surehand panel

• A new panel:
  • What the AI may do: Full, Ask (approve each edit) or Read-only;
  • Pause AI;
  • a feed of what the AI did, with Undo for its last step;
  • checkpoints you can save, compare and restore.
• Chat inside After Effects: talk to Codex, Claude Code or Antigravity from the panel, on your own sign-in, under the same Full / Ask / Read-only setting. Settings › Panel opens on can make the chat the first screen.
• Updates in the panel: release notes, Update now, an optional Beta updates channel, and a clear "Restart After Effects to finish the update" notice.

In your AI app

• In-chat views: Preflight, proven edits, X-ray and the stress test show their results inside the chat (Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code), with Show in AE and Ask the AI to fix this.
• Skills: four Agent Skills teach AI apps to work with Surehand well. They're installed for Claude Code, Codex / ChatGPT desktop, Cursor, VS Code and Windsurf, and can be uploaded to Claude Desktop.
• More AI apps: VS Code (GitHub Copilot), Windsurf / Devin Desktop and LM Studio, alongside Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and Cursor.
• Tools: 114 tools. A core set of 29 is loaded, and the rest are available on demand.

Install

• Mac: a signed, notarized .pkg.
• Windows: a signed Setup.exe.
• Both: Node.js is included, no administrator rights are needed, and you choose which AI apps to connect.

Fixes and smaller changes

• Undo: ae_undo and ae_redo check that After Effects really undid each step, and say so when a dialog in After Effects blocks it.
• Reinstalling after an uninstall works cleanly. AI apps are no longer detected from leftover folders.
• Project names with spaces are shown correctly.

Full details: the README and the wiki.

Tested on After Effects 2025 and 2026, on macOS and Windows 11.

v1.4.0-beta.7

Surehand MCP 1.4.0-beta.7: the seventh beta of 1.4. Render farm readiness and chunked renders, checked frame by frame.

This is a pre-release for testing. Existing installs get it only with Beta updates on (panel ☰ › Settings, or surehand-ae update --channel beta); everyone else stays on 1.3.4.

Farm readiness and chunked renders (ae_farm)

Know before the render whether a render machine has everything it needs, split a render across processes or machines, and prove the result is complete.

• Manifest: what a render really needs, following each queued item down through its precomps:

  • the After Effects version and project settings (bit depth, colour and OCIO, expression engine);
  • plug-ins by match name;
  • fonts, and whether each is installed;
  • every footage file, with sequence gaps;
  • output folders.

  It flags every path other machines can't see, like your home folder or Desktop.

• Check a machine against it: in the chat, or on a render node from a terminal with no After Effects open: surehand-ae farm check <manifest.json> [--map from=to]. It reports what's missing or different, and exits 0 when the node is ready.

• Plan: splits a render queue item into frame chunks, for processes on this machine or for named machines, with ready-to-run aerender scripts (.command for Mac, .bat for Windows).

  • Frame numbers follow the comp's own numbering, so comps that start at a timecode like 01:00:00:00 render the right frames.
  • For movies, each chunk writes its own file, and the join is done only when it's lossless (intra-frame codecs such as ProRes). Otherwise it says so and suggests an image sequence.
  • Includes a time estimate from a render profile, or from frames sampled now.

• Run here: runs the chunks as parallel aerender processes, at most as many as the cores and memory allow.

  • Windows: each process starts after the previous one has begun rendering.
  • Progress: per chunk, with per-frame times.
  • Restarts: renders keep going if the AI app restarts.
  • Status: only reports, and never starts anything.

• Verify: proves the result.

  • Sequences: every frame present once, with nothing empty or cut off.
  • Movies: frame counts and format checked with ffprobe.
  • Damaged output: the exact frames to render again, with the command.
  • Pixel check: a few frames are compared against After Effects' own render, so blank or wrong output can't pass. Tiny text-edge differences between aerender and the app are noted, not failed.

v1.4.0-beta.6

Surehand MCP 1.4.0-beta.6: the sixth beta of 1.4. The stress test, plus more honest undo and redo.

This is a pre-release for testing. Existing installs get it only with Beta updates on (panel ☰ › Settings, or surehand-ae update --channel beta); everyone else stays on 1.3.4.

Stress test (ae_stress_test)

Find out what breaks when the data changes, before a client or an editor does. The stress test fills a comp's variable fields with worst-case inputs, then measures each result exactly.

• Finds what's variable: Essential Graphics controls and data-driven text, or the layers you name.

• Worst-case inputs:

  • the longest German and Finnish strings, Hebrew and Arabic (with digits), Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Hindi, emoji, combining accents, empty text, a URL with no break point, all caps;
  • zero, negative, huge and long-decimal numbers.

  Your own values or CSV/JSON rows can be used alongside them or instead of them.

• Measures, in numbers:

  • text overflowing its box (by how many pixels and lines);
  • safe areas and the frame edge;
  • text size;
  • characters the font can't draw: it names your font and says what After Effects fell back to, or that nothing is drawn;
  • right-to-left text in a left-to-right paragraph;
  • line breaks inside a word;
  • numbers the comp shows wrong (a lost minus sign), and values a control won't accept.

• Breaks in other After Effects languages: finds expressions that name effects, parameters, layer styles or shape groups by their English names, with the language-safe fix for each.

• Your comp is never touched: every variant runs on a temporary copy that is removed. Afterwards your comp is read back value by value and must match exactly.

• In-chat view: in apps that show views, the result appears as a grid of variants × checks, failing first. Each failing variant shows its real frame with the box marked, the exact numbers, Show in AE and Ask the AI to fix this.

Undo and redo tell the truth

• Checked, not assumed: ae_undo and ae_redo now check that After Effects really undid or redid each step.
• With a dialog open: After Effects ignores Undo then, and the tool used to report success anyway. Now it says nothing was undone and that a dialog may be open.
• Partial runs: a run that could only do some of the steps says how many it did.

Fixes

• Project names: a project name with spaces is no longer reported URL-encoded (My%20Spot.aep).
• Self-test: it clears what an interrupted earlier run left in the project, and the frame-preview step waits for the image to be written.

v1.4.0-beta.5

Surehand MCP 1.4.0-beta.5: the fifth beta of 1.4. Precomp surgery with pixel proof, left-to-right text by default, and a clear "restart After Effects" after an update.

This is a pre-release for testing. Existing installs get it only with Beta updates on (panel ☰ › Settings, or surehand-ae update --channel beta); everyone else stays on 1.3.4.

Precomp surgery (ae_precomp_surgery)

Restructure inherited projects without breaking them. Every surgery is rehearsed on a scratch copy and proven pixel-identical before it touches your project. If the proof differs, nothing is applied.

• Un-precompose: brings a precomp's layers back into the parent comp.
  • The precomp layer's position, scale and rotation are carried by a null. Parenting, timing (start, in and out), track mattes and Layer Control references are kept.
  • Every expression reference to a moved layer, by name or by index, is rewritten exactly, including in other comps. Names that clash get a number.
  • It refuses, with the exact reason, what can't be reproduced. That includes effects, masks or time remap on the precomp layer, blend modes and opacity across several layers, 3D, adjustment layers, and references built at run time.
  • A scaled precomp is reported honestly: text and edges render slightly differently once each layer is scaled by itself. It isn't applied unless you allow that difference with tolerance.
• Deep duplicate: copies a comp and every precomp inside it, unlinked. A precomp used in several places is copied once. Expressions inside the copies point at the copies; references to other comps are kept.
• Remove copies (action: "remove_copies"): removes exactly what a deep duplicate made, and refuses if anything else uses a copy.
• Dry run (dryRun: true): the full plan, every rewrite and every blocker, without changing anything.
• The way back: After Effects doesn't always keep a script's edits as one undo step, so the exact way back is the checkpoint saved before every un-precompose, or remove_copies for a deep duplicate.

Text

• Left-to-right by default: new text that has no Hebrew or Arabic is now set left to right, so it no longer depends on your After Effects' paragraph settings. Text with Hebrew or Arabic is left to After Effects.
• New direction setting: ae_add_layer and ae_set_text can now set the direction explicitly, and text info reports it.

Updates

• Restart notice: after an update while After Effects is open, the panel shows "Restart After Effects to finish the update". ae_status says the same, and so do failed steps while the old panel still runs.

Fixes

• Frame and proof renders: they wait for a complete PNG file, not just one whose size stopped changing.
• ae_undo and ae_redo: their change report now covers every comp, not just the active one.

v1.4.0-beta.4

Surehand MCP 1.4.0-beta.4: the fourth beta of 1.4. Chat with your AI app inside After Effects, five new pro workflows that check their own work, and beta updates from the panel.

This is a pre-release for testing. Existing installs get it only with Beta updates on (panel ☰ › Settings, or surehand-ae update --channel beta); everyone else stays on 1.3.4.

Chat inside After Effects

Talk to Codex, Claude Code or Antigravity from the Surehand panel, without leaving After Effects.

• Your own sign-in: each app runs on its own account. Surehand never sees it.
• Same rules: every edit goes through the same Full / Ask / Read-only setting and the activity list, and stays undoable.
  • In Ask mode, the approval card appears right in the chat.
• What you see: each step the AI takes is a row (Read, CHANGED, FAILED, NOT RUN), and answers show formatted text.
• Choosing an app: the picker lists only apps that are installed and signed in. "AI apps for chat" shows how to install and sign in to the others.
• Antigravity: Connect adds Surehand to its MCP servers and allows only Surehand's tools there, after a backup. Uninstall removes both.
• Getting there: a chat button in the main header. Settings › Panel opens on can make the chat the first screen.

New workflows

• Versions from data (ae_versions_from_data): builds one checked version per CSV/JSON row. Every row is checked against your rules, so text that doesn't fit is reported, not shipped.
• Reformat by your constraints (ae_reformat): makes 9:16, 1:1 and other versions by your layout rules, then checks every frame.
• Localization round trip (ae_localize):
  • exports the text for translation and imports it back;
  • fits it by your rules;
  • handles right-to-left languages (Hebrew, Arabic) with the correct direction and composer.
• Handoff packager (ae_handoff_package): collects the project and its footage, writes a manifest, and proves the package opens and renders the same.
• Render profiler (ae_render_profile):
  • Measure shows where render time goes (a heat map per frame, the cost of each layer and effect), with the measured spread.
  • Optimize applies only speed-ups that render pixel-identical, checkpointed first.
  • Bit depth: a 32 bpc project is tested at 16 bpc and only suggested when the picture stays the same.

Updates

• Beta updates: a switch in the panel's Settings. When the newest release is stable, the beta channel gets that.
• In the panel: the panel shows a new version, its notes, and an Update now button.

Fixes

• Frame renders wait for the file outside the script and come out with the correct colour in 32 bpc projects. A render never uses Edit › Undo, so your own last step is safe.
• Reinstalling after an uninstall no longer falls back to the old ~/.aemcp folder, so a silent install writes its results file again.
• Mac installer: the choice titles are short, and the details are in the description.
• AI app detection: LM Studio and Cursor are no longer reported from leftover folders.
• Housekeeping:
  • backups are pruned to the 3 newest;
  • stale session files are cleaned up;
  • the X-ray view has a size cap;
  • tool list changes are coalesced.
• Smaller download: the server file is about 40% smaller (3.3 MB).

v1.4.0-beta.3

Surehand MCP 1.4.0-beta.3: the third beta of 1.4. Results you can see and click right in the chat, skills that teach AI apps to use Surehand well, and three more AI apps.

This is a pre-release for testing. surehand-ae update ignores pre-releases, so existing installs stay on 1.3.4 until you install this one yourself.

In-chat views

Three tools now show their results inside the chat in Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Cursor (2.6+) and VS Code (1.109+), in the Surehand look, following the app's light or dark mode.

• Preflight report (ae_preflight):

  • the verdict;
  • a timeline of the comp with every finding where it happens;
  • findings grouped by check, with timecode, layer and fix.

  Open a row to see that frame with the problem marked.

• What changed, and the proof (ae_prove_identical, ae_project_history):

  • IDENTICAL or DIFFERS;
  • before, after and the amplified difference, with a slider through the compared frames;
  • the list of changes, with old values struck through.

• Project X-ray (ae_project_xray): a "what renders" tree from each render-queue item down to the footage, with missing, placeholder, fragile and heavy items tagged and counted, and the details of each problem. Large projects load as you open them.

How the views behave:

• Show in AE: jumps After Effects to the frame and selects the layer or item. It only navigates; nothing in the project changes.
• Ask the AI to fix this: writes the request into the chat, so every edit still goes through the panel's Full / Ask / Read-only setting and stays undoable.
• Text-only apps: Claude Code, Windsurf and LM Studio get the same text as before.

Skills

Four Agent Skills teach AI apps how to work in After Effects with Surehand:

• surehand-ae: read first, check every change, respect refusals, avoid known ExtendScript traps.
• surehand-ae-delivery: checks against your own spec, quoting the verdict exactly.
• surehand-ae-safe-restructure: restructures with pixel proof.
• surehand-ae-timing-layout: exact keyframes and layout by measured bounds.

How they're installed:

• Coding and desktop apps: the installers put them where Claude Code, Codex / ChatGPT desktop, Cursor, VS Code and Windsurf / Devin read skills. Uninstall removes them.
• Claude Desktop chat: upload the zips in ~/.surehand/ae/skills (Customize › Skills › Upload a skill).
• surehand-ae skills: shows where they are.

More AI apps

• Newly supported: Setup and the panel can connect VS Code (Copilot), Windsurf / Devin Desktop and LM Studio.
• Windows Setup: the "Choose AI apps" page now has two columns. A second double-click brings the open Setup window to the front instead of starting another one.

Smaller changes

• "Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network": ae_status and the panel's Test screen now show this setting. When it's off, scripts can't run shell commands or use the network; Surehand's own tools don't need it.
• Built-in instructions: shorter, with the most important rules first.

v1.4.0-beta.2

Surehand MCP 1.4.0-beta.2: the second beta of 1.4. A new look in the Conform Labs style, and installers that let you choose your AI apps.

This is a pre-release for testing. surehand-ae update ignores pre-releases, so existing installs stay on 1.3.4 until you install this one yourself.

Panel and approval pop-up

• A new look in the Conform Labs style: the panel, the ☰ screens and the approval pop-up. It has clearer status words (CHANGED, PASSED, NOT RUN, FAILED) and fonts that work in After Effects 2020 and later.
• The panel shows which AI app is connected as soon as it starts, before its first request. Before any AI app opens, it says "No AI app open" and how to start.
• The panel no longer polls After Effects with scripts. That polling could trigger the "Cannot run a script while a modal dialog is waiting for response" alert.

Installers

• Choose AI apps: both installers list Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor and ChatGPT desktop / Codex. Apps that aren't on the computer are greyed out.
• ChatGPT on the web (optional): Setup can download Cloudflare's cloudflared for the secure link ChatGPT uses. You can also do this later from the panel ("Install it for me").
• Results: at the end, the installer shows what was connected, what wasn't found and what to do next.
• Windows: run Setup again to reinstall or uninstall. Uninstall can also remove your settings and checkpoints. It says when After Effects needs a restart.
• Both installers have the same Conform Labs look.

Fixes

• Setup creates the sessions folder, so the panel can show the connection state from the first day.
• Windows signing accepts the certificate id in the format newer tools print.

v1.4.0-beta.1

Surehand MCP 1.4.0-beta.1: the first beta of 1.4, "Verified". After Effects MCP is now Surehand MCP for Adobe® After Effects®: it operates After Effects for you, and proves what it did.

This is a pre-release for testing. surehand-ae update ignores pre-releases, so existing installs stay on 1.3.4 until you install this one yourself.

New name, signed installers

• Surehand MCP. The command is surehand-ae (ae-mcp still works), and settings move from ~/.aemcp to ~/.surehand/ae. The move is automatic: your settings, checkpoints and AI-app connections come along, and a note stays in the old folder.
• Mac: a signed, notarized .pkg.
• Windows: a signed Setup .exe.

Both installers include Node.js and set up your AI apps.

Verification

• Proven edits (ae_prove_identical): renders frames before and after a structural change and compares the pixels. The answer is "identical within tolerance", or the frames that differ.

• Project history and diff (ae_project_history): snapshots of comps, layers, keyframes, expressions and effects, so you can ask what changed between two versions.

• Project X-ray (ae_project_xray): for an inherited project, shows:

  • what reaches the render queue
  • expression links that break when something is renamed
  • missing fonts and plugins
  • heavy hidden layers

• Preflight (ae_preflight): checks a comp and its render against your delivery spec:

  • safe areas over time
  • legal range
  • loudness
  • black and frozen frames
  • a flash pre-check

  It gives a timecoded PASS / WARNINGS / INCOMPLETE / FAIL report. It uses ffmpeg, with a one-time download only if you allow it.

• Change reports now include mask mode, invert and the other mask settings.

Precision tools

Exact control, in numbers:

• Keyframe tables (ae_get_keyframes, ae_set_keyframe_table): keys of many layers in whole frames, with speed and influence exactly as stored. Keys that sit between frames are flagged. Existing keyframe tools take frames too.

• Easing: ae_copy_ease copies one key's exact ease to many keys and layers. ae_audit_easing checks a comp against its own most-used curves.

• Retiming (ae_retime_keyframes):

  • scale around a key
  • offset
  • stagger in layer order
  • conform to a new frame rate

  Every mode lands on whole frames.

• Measured layout (ae_align_layers): align, distribute and centre by the layers' measured on-screen bounds, through scale, rotation and parenting, not by anchor points.

• Files and stills:

  • ae_find_files: globs, ~, accented names.
  • ae_export_frames: full-resolution PNGs of comps, chosen layers or footage, several per call.
  • ae_import_files says when After Effects rejected the requested "import as".

The Surehand panel (Window › Extensions › Surehand MCP)

• One view: status, What the AI may do (Full / Ask / Read-only), Pause AI, and a feed of what the AI did with Undo for its last step.
• A ☰ menu in the panel: Connect an AI app (including ChatGPT on the web through a secure link), Checkpoints (save, compare with now, open a copy), Activity history, Test the connection, Updates, and About.
• Approvals in Ask mode. When the panel is closed, a small pop-up asks and then closes. Enter never allows.
• Calls you stopped (Pause, Deny, Read-only) show as "Not run", not as failures.
• Fixed: a long script no longer makes the panel start a second bridge.

Help

The new wiki explains every part: https://github.com/ConformLabs/surehand-mcp/wiki

Tested on After Effects 2025 and 2026, on macOS and Windows 11.

v1.3.4

Safer read-only mode, no silent overwrites, and clear answers when After Effects is busy or blocked. Tested on After Effects 2025 and 2026, on macOS and Windows.

Update

• From v1.3.3: click Update in the AE MCP panel, or run ae-mcp update. Then restart After Effects and your AI apps.
• Claude Desktop only: install the new AE-MCP.mcpb.
• New install: download AE-MCP-1.3.4.zip, open START HERE.txt, run 1. Install.

Read-only mode you can trust

• It never undoes your own work. Scripts run in read-only mode are rolled back with a temporary undo marker, so Edit > Undo always reverts exactly the script's own step and nothing before it. Writing a value that was already set can no longer undo your previous edit.
• Refused before they run: scripts that touch the undo history (executeCommand, beginUndoGroup, endUndoGroup, purge) or do things that can't be undone (open, close or save a project, newProject, quit, rendering, scheduleTask, saving preferences). Escaped and bracketed names are caught too. A name assembled at runtime still gets past the check; the guarded rollback is the backstop, and it reports honestly when the project isn't back.
• Fast: when a script changed nothing, read-only mode no longer compares every property. It was 14–22 s per script on big projects; now it takes a fraction of a second.

When After Effects is busy or blocked

• A tool call that can't start because After Effects is blocked (a dialog, an alert) now answers in about 3 seconds: "After Effects is busy or showing a dialog… This call did not run and will not run later." It used to wait for the full timeout.
• A call the AI gave up on never runs later, for example after a dialog finally closes.
• ae_status tells apart: not running, starting (it waits up to 15 s), busy or blocked, and ready. It no longer says "frozen or quitting" while AE is just starting.
• Long renders and scripts that have already started are never cut short.
• New settings in ~/.aemcp/config.json: blockedAfterSeconds (default 3; 0 turns the fast check off) and startupWaitSeconds (default 15).

Fixes

• JavaScript reserved words (in, default, class, int, short…) as names or keys now work. They used to fail in After Effects with "Illegal use of reserved word".
• No silent overwrites: Save As, frame preview output files and checkpoint restore refuse to replace an existing file unless you pass overwrite: true.
• Every tool tells AI apps accurately whether it only reads, edits, or deletes (MCP tool hints), checked by a test.
• README: the tool count is correct (94) and stays in sync with the code. It also explains overwrite protection, and now says "tested on After Effects 2025–2026; older versions best effort".

For maintainers

• npm run test:mac runs one test at a time per Mac, checks it's testing the right build, and uses the real home folder.
• The self-test has new read-only, rollback and regression cases. Undo-stress cases that can crash After Effects only run with AEMCP_SELFTEST_UNDO_STRESS=1.
• npm run revision-matrix (or -- --ssh <pc>) shows which actions move app.project.revision.

v1.3.3

Fixes the new in-place updater, and the After Effects extension now reports its real version.

Install / update

• Claude Desktop only: download AE-MCP.mcpb, double-click, Install. Restart After Effects once.
• Everything else (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT desktop, Cursor, Codex): download AE-MCP-1.3.3.zip, unzip, open START HERE.txt, run 1. Install in 2. Mac or 3. Windows. Restart After Effects and your AI apps.
• From v1.3.2: please install this version from the zip once. The updater in v1.3.2 can't install updates (fixed here). From v1.3.3 on, the Update button and ae-mcp update work.

Fixes

• ae-mcp update / the panel's Update button: v1.3.2 rejected every download because Node won't run a module saved as .download. Nothing was changed when that happened.
• The extension's manifest now carries the release version, so ZXP installers and Adobe's extension lists show e.g. 1.3.3 instead of 1.0.0.