@imgly/codesign-mcp

@imgly/codesign-mcp

IMG.LY CoDesign — an MCP server that gives your AI agent a real design engine. It runs locally, so an agent can compose vector layouts, set type, place and edit images, and export print-quality PDF alongside PNG, JPEG, WebP and SVG.

It works with any MCP host — Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex and others.

Requirements

• Node.js 22.15 or newer on your PATH
• The design engine downloads on first launch — give it a few minutes the first time

Install

Hosts spawn the server with npx, so there is no separate install step.

Keep the @latest pin in every recipe below. A bare npx spec caches the first version it sees and never updates — and since each release carries a fresh trial license, a stale copy eventually stops working.

Claude Code

claude mcp add codesign -- npx -y @imgly/codesign-mcp@latest stdio

Codex

codex mcp add codesign -- npx -y @imgly/codesign-mcp@latest stdio

Claude Desktop

Settings → Developer → Edit Config, then add to claude_desktop_config.json:

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

Other MCP hosts

Every other host spawns the same stdio server — only the config file and the top-level key differ. Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json) and Windsurf (~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json) take the block above as-is; VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json) uses the key servers instead of mcpServers.

What your agent gets

• A design loop. edit applies changes to a scene, preview renders what it looks like, inspect and changes report structure and diffs, history and list cover the workspace. Designs live on disk and persist across sessions.
• An embedded handbook. A single skill tool reads and searches a bundled catalog — handbook, API reference, guides, plus task skills for brand, localization, resizing, format conversion and design review. One MCP prompt, /codesign, loads the whole design context in a single message (optionally with a brief) so a session needs no reference reads.
• Import and export. import opens Photoshop (.psd/.psb), InDesign (.idml), PowerPoint (.pptx), PDF, plain images and SVG as a new design; export writes PDF, print-ready PDF/X, PNG, JPEG, WebP, SVG, HTML and the portable, self-contained .imgly design file.
• A visual editor. view opens the current design in a browser-based editor for hands-on tweaks; edits you save there come back as a new revision the agent can continue from.

Licensing

Each release ships with a 30-day CE.SDK trial license, so the install commands above work as-is — there is nothing to sign up for first, and updating to a newer release renews it.

Production use needs a license of your own. See img.ly/pricing, or talk to us at img.ly/support.

Accounts and AI generation

The design tools need no account. Signing in is only required for AI generation (asset_generate): call the login tool from inside a session and finish in your browser, or logout to sign out.

Your designs and your data

The server keeps everything under ~/.codesign/: your designs in workspace/, your session token in auth.json after you sign in, and a small amount of engine bookkeeping. Designs are read and written on your machine, and the view editor is served from a local port — no design is uploaded to run the design loop. AI generation and asset search contact IMG.LY services by design, since that is where they run.

Command line

The binary serves one transport and three subcommands:

codesign-mcp stdio           # MCP over stdin/stdout — what hosts spawn
codesign-mcp system-prompt   # the design context as one system prompt
codesign-mcp diagnose        # redacted log bundle for IMG.LY support
codesign-mcp --help

diagnose collects local logs into a .zip and makes no network calls.

Headless runs: system-prompt

An interactive host can invoke the /codesign prompt and get the whole design context in one message. A headless run cannot invoke a prompt at all — it gets a brief and starts working, so it pays the reference reads on every run, re-sends their results with every turn, and produces broken output when it skips one. system-prompt writes the same bundle — handbook, design rules, the edit-code API surface, judge, copy rules, quirks, fonts — as a system prompt, where it costs nothing to re-read:

codesign-mcp system-prompt -o codesign.md
claude -p "an A4 recruiting poster for a bakery" \
  --append-system-prompt-file codesign.md \
  --strict-mcp-config --mcp-config mcp.json

Use a file, not --append-system-prompt "$(…)": the bundle is larger than a single shell argument is allowed to be. --replace emits the variant for --system-prompt, which replaces the host's own prompt. What stays behind the skill tool is what a run reads only when it needs it — the upstream CE.SDK type definitions, the guide, and the task skills.

Support

Questions, bug reports and licensing: img.ly/support.

Release channels

Three npm dist-tags, from the same source:

Channel	Install	Engine	Video
latest	npx @imgly/codesign-mcp	WASM	off
next	npx @imgly/codesign-mcp@next	WASM	off
canary	npx @imgly/codesign-mcp@canary	native (required)	on

next is the tip of main, published on every push. canary is the same commit built with the native engine and the video surface on — it exists so the native engine gets real usage before it becomes everyone's default.

Two things to know before installing canary:

• It requires @cesdk/node-native and refuses to start without it, rather than quietly falling back to WASM. A canary that silently ran WASM would tell you nothing about the thing it exists to test.
• There is no native binary for linux-arm64, so canary cannot run there — including Docker on Apple Silicon. Use next or latest on those hosts.

Environment knobs

Variable	Meaning
IMGLY_CESDK_ENGINE	engine flavor: wasm | native (default: wasm, or native when video is on).
IMGLY_FEATURE_VIDEO	on | off — video export and video/audio import (default: off).
IMGLY_TELEMETRY	on | off — usage telemetry (default: on).
IMGLY_DIAGNOSTICS_FILE	false stops local diagnostics logging (default: true).
IMGLY_DIAGNOSTICS_TOOL	false hides the diagnostics tool (default: true).
IMGLY_DIAGNOSTICS_DIR	where diagnostics logs are written (default: the platform state dir).
IMGLY_GATEWAY_API_KEY	AI gateway key; an alternative to signing in with the login tool.
IMGLY_GATEWAY_BASE_URL	AI gateway endpoint (default: IMG.LY hosted).
IMGLY_AUTH_ISSUER	override the built-in sign-in endpoints — set both together, or neither.
IMGLY_AUTH_CLIENT_ID	see IMGLY_AUTH_ISSUER.
IMGLY_DEFAULT_ASSETS_BASE_URL	manifest root for the default asset sources (default: IMG.LY CDN).
IMGLY_DEMO_ASSETS_BASE_URL	manifest root for the demo asset sources (default: IMG.LY CDN).
IMGLY_GFONTS_CONTENT_URL	Google Fonts content root (default: IMG.LY CDN).

These are a development surface: a published build deletes every IMGLY_* / CESDK_* / CODESIGN_* variable at startup except the licence, workspace, engine-sizing and gateway-credential ones — see src/cli/frozen-env.ts. Setting one on a released build has no effect and reports no error.

License and terms

Use of CoDesign is governed by the CoDesign Terms of Service. For commercial licensing, see img.ly/pricing.