In chat views

In-chat views

In AI apps that show interactive views (MCP Apps; for example Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, VS Code and Cursor), some results come with a view right in the chat:

Tool	The view
Preflight (ae_preflight)	The verdict, a timeline of the findings, and each finding's frame.
Project X-ray (ae_project_xray)	What renders, from the render queue down to the footage, with what's missing, fragile, heavy while hidden or unused.
Stress test (ae_stress_test)	A grid of variants and checks, each failing frame marked, and the expressions that break in other After Effects languages.
Proven edits and Project history	A proof's verdict with before, after and difference frames, and what changed in the project (also for a history diff).

Where a finding points at a place in the project, the view has Show in AE: it opens the comp in After Effects, moves to the time and selects the layer (or selects the footage in the Project panel). That only navigates; it changes nothing in the project. Some findings also have Ask the AI to fix this (or Ask the AI to fix it), which sends the request to the AI as a message in the chat. The fix itself then runs like any other edit.

Views only look

A view navigates and shows; it never changes the project. Every edit still goes through the chat, with the same mode, approvals and activity log.

Apps without views

AI apps that don't show views (for example Claude Code, Windsurf, LM Studio) get the same results as text. Nothing is missing from the answer, only the pictures.

Tool loading

A view only shows when the AI app calls the tool directly, not through ae_call. So in AI apps that show views, the four tools with a view (ae_preflight, ae_project_xray, ae_project_history, ae_stress_test) join the core set. See What the AI can do.