> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://kino.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Edit With Your Agent

> Search footage, build a sequence, and export from the terminal

With the Kino MCP server connected, an agent can take an edit from "find the good takes" to a rendered file. This guide walks through what that loop looks like in practice.

## Start from a prompt

Open your agent with Kino connected and describe the edit:

> Make a 60-second cut of the interview where Sarah talks about the product launch. Use the b-roll from last week for cutaways.

The agent reads the Kino workflow guide first (`getKinoInstructions`), then either edits the open project or opens/creates one (`listProjects` / `openProject` / `createProject`). Project tools error if nothing is selected. Ask for a format — "a vertical version for TikTok" — and the agent either creates the project at that frame size or reformats the open one with `setCompositionSettings`.

## The agent finds your footage

Instead of you scrubbing through clips, the agent searches:

* `transcriptSemanticSearch` finds where Sarah talks about the launch, with timestamps
* `visualSemanticSearch` finds b-roll by what's on screen
* `readVideo` pulls the full transcript and highlights of a clip so the agent can pick exact in and out points

If you already selected clips in the Kino UI, the agent can work from your timeline and media-library selections instead (`getSelectedItems`).

## The agent edits the composition

For timeline surgery — moving clips, trimming cuts, splitting, ripple edits — the agent uses structured operations: `timelineGet` to read the timeline and `timelineEdit` to change it, with the same guarantees as editing by hand.

Everything else is code. Kino compositions are React, so the agent edits them the way it edits any codebase: reading files, searching them, and applying patches (`projectRead`, `projectGrep`, `projectPatch`). Inserting a title is a code change. So is anything Kino doesn't have a button for yet: if the agent can compute it (a beat grid, a custom color effect), it can write it into the timeline.

After each change it can render a screenshot of the timeline at a specific timestamp (`projectScreenshot`) to verify the result visually, and profile playback (`projectProfile`) if it added heavy effects.

Your timeline updates live in the desktop app while this happens. You can watch the cut come together and interrupt with notes at any point.

## Export

When you're happy with the cut:

> Export this as launch-cut-v1.mp4 on my Desktop

The agent starts the render (`exportVideo`) and polls until the file is ready (`getVideoExportTask`).

## Tips

* Be specific about duration, tone, and which footage to use. Vague requests produce vague searches.
* Ask for a screenshot whenever you want to sanity-check the state of the timeline without switching windows.
* The agent works on whatever project is open in the desktop app, so keep the right project open when you start.


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