Adobe Illustrator MCP server

The illustrator-mcp is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Adobe Illustrator that enables text, image, and path manipulation along with information retrieval. Note that this tool only works on macOS systems.

Installation

To get started with illustrator-mcp, you need to configure your MCP client to use this server. Follow these steps:

1. Make sure you have Node.js installed on your system
2. Clone or download the illustrator-mcp repository
3. Navigate to the project directory and install dependencies if needed
4. Configure your MCP client to use the server

Configuring Your MCP Client

Add the following configuration to your MCP client configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "illustrator": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "~/Documents/web/illustrator-mcp/build/index.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Make sure to adjust the path in the args array to match the actual location where you've installed the illustrator-mcp on your system.

Usage

Once you've configured your MCP client to use the illustrator-mcp server, you can start using it to manipulate Adobe Illustrator through the MCP protocol. The server enables:

• Text manipulation
• Image manipulation
• Path manipulation
• Information retrieval from Illustrator documents

The server handles the communication between your MCP client and Adobe Illustrator, allowing you to programmatically work with Illustrator files and elements.

Example Operations

While using the MCP client, you can perform operations such as:

• Retrieving text content from an Illustrator document
• Manipulating paths and shapes
• Working with images in the document
• Extracting information about document elements

Refer to your MCP client documentation for specific commands and syntax to interact with the illustrator-mcp server.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "illustrator" '{"command":"node","args":["~/Documents/web/illustrator-mcp/build/index.js"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "illustrator": {
            "command": "node",
            "args": [
                "~/Documents/web/illustrator-mcp/build/index.js"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "illustrator": {
            "command": "node",
            "args": [
                "~/Documents/web/illustrator-mcp/build/index.js"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect