New MCP tool for renoise

[kunitoki]

This pull request introduces the initial implementation of the Renoise MCP (Model Context Protocol) server tool, making Renoise controllable by AI clients such as Claude Desktop and Claude Code. It adds a complete, self-contained Renoise tool package with documentation, manifest, entry point, a pure Lua JSON encoder/decoder, and an extensible tool registry and protocol handler. The server exposes Renoise’s full song API over HTTP for AI-driven music composition and editing.

The most important changes are:

Documentation and Manifest:

• Added a comprehensive README.md describing installation, usage, supported commands, architecture, and extension points for the Renoise MCP tool.
• Added manifest.xml with tool metadata for Renoise, including API version, author, and description.

Core Architecture and Entry Point:

• Introduced main.lua as the entry point, registering menu entries and keybindings to launch the MCP server control panel within Renoise.

JSON and Protocol Handling:

• Implemented a pure Lua JSON encoder/decoder in mcp/json.lua, ensuring compatibility with Renoise’s Lua environment and no external dependencies.
• Added mcp/router.lua, which loads tool definitions, registers them, and handles all MCP protocol requests, including tool listing, invocation, and error handling. This enables extensibility by simply adding .lua files in the tools/ directory.

[emuell]

I have seen this just now. Sorry for the lag. This works great after some setup fiddling. Thanks for sharing!

I've been using Claude Desktop on Windows and initially had the following troubles:

• the claude_desktop_config.json config file mentioned in the tool was a macOS path. I found mine via https://claude.com/docs/connectors/building/mcp-apps/getting-started. So, probably adding Make sure you have installed and logged into Claude Desktop. Navigate to the developer settings page (Settings > Developer) and click the "Edit Config" button. would have made that easier.

• it didn't work initially, so I tried closing Claude and started it again by simply closing the window. It seems this was not enough. To really close it and let it reload its MCP config, you need to click on the menu "File -> Exit" in Claude desktop. Then, start it again.

Let me know if it's worth tweaking the ReadMe with this info. Also fine to merge it as it is now too.

[kunitoki]

Hey ! Sure thing, please feel free to fix and augment whatever you see fit. I've just tested this on macos, so for windows/linux some more fiddling is required. I usually use this from VScode and claude CLI so not sure what Claude Desktop is. I'm pretty sure we can add more available actions to perform tedious things.

[kunitoki]

It would be nice if the tools had a way to dock into the renoise interface btw 😸