> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.budgetpixel.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# MCP Server
> Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible agent to BudgetPixel and generate images, video, music, and sound effects from the conversation — no API key needed.
BudgetPixel runs a remote [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) server
that gives AI agents tools to create with your BudgetPixel account: generate **images,
video, and music**, upload reference files, check pricing and credits, and publish
finished work to the BudgetPixel community — all from the chat.
```
https://mcp.budgetpixel.com/mcp
```
There are no API keys involved: you sign in with Google during the connect flow, and the
connector acts as your account. Plan credits, model discounts, and free-generation
allowances apply exactly as they do on budgetpixel.com.
Generation, uploads, and posting through MCP require a paid plan — **Starter**,
**Basic**, **Premium**, **Pro** or **Ultra** — the same plans that include the
developer API. Any account, Free included, can connect, browse the model catalog and
[search the free stock image library](/stock-images) (10 credits per search); agents on
other plans get a clear upgrade notice when they try to generate.
BudgetPixel exposes **two** MCP endpoints. This page documents the **product server** at
`mcp.budgetpixel.com/mcp` — the one that creates images, video, and music with your
account. Separately, this documentation site hosts a **docs-search server** at
`docs.budgetpixel.com/mcp`, giving agents read-only search tools over these docs —
useful alongside the API when you want your agent to answer integration questions from
the documentation itself.
## Connect your client
1. In [claude.ai](https://claude.ai) (or the desktop app), open **Settings → Connectors**
and click **Add custom connector**.
2. Name it `BudgetPixel` and paste the server URL:
```
https://mcp.budgetpixel.com/mcp
```
3. Click **Add → Connect** and sign in with Google. Then ask Claude to
*"generate an image (or video, or song) of … using BudgetPixel"*.
1. Register the connector with one command:
```bash theme={null}
claude mcp add --transport http budgetpixel https://mcp.budgetpixel.com/mcp
```
2. Run `/mcp` in Claude Code, select **budgetpixel**, and choose **Authenticate** —
sign in with Google.
3. Ask Claude Code for an image, video, or music track — it calls the `budgetpixel`
tools and returns result links (ask it to save anything you want to keep).
1. Open **Settings → Apps → Advanced settings** and turn on **Developer mode**.
2. Under **Apps**, click **Create app**, name it `BudgetPixel`, and paste the server
URL as the MCP connection:
```
https://mcp.budgetpixel.com/mcp
```
3. Click **Create**, then connect and sign in with Google. Ask ChatGPT to generate
with BudgetPixel.
ChatGPT connects MCP servers as "apps" via Developer mode (Settings → Apps) — this is
separate from ChatGPT's built-in Connectors, and requires a ChatGPT plan with
Developer mode enabled.
1. Open **Cursor Settings → Tools & Integrations** and click **New MCP Server** —
this opens your `mcp.json`.
2. Add BudgetPixel as a remote server by URL:
```json theme={null}
{
"mcpServers": {
"budgetpixel": { "url": "https://mcp.budgetpixel.com/mcp" }
}
}
```
3. Save — Cursor opens your browser to sign in with Google. In the agent panel, ask
for an image, video, or track.
Any client that speaks remote MCP over **streamable HTTP** connects with the one URL:
```
https://mcp.budgetpixel.com/mcp
```
The server implements standard OAuth 2.1 with PKCE and dynamic client registration,
so your agent handles the Google sign-in flow automatically — no manual token
configuration.
## Available tools
| Tool | What it does |
| - | - |
| `generate_image` | Text-to-image, image-to-image, and multi-reference editing across the full image catalog. Results appear directly in the chat. |
| `generate_video` | SeeDance 2.0 and SeeDance 2.0 Mini — text-to-video, image-to-video, reference-images-to-video, and video-to-video editing. Priced per second by resolution; the tool echoes the exact cost before results arrive. |
| `generate_music` | Music 3.0 (default), Music 2.6, Lyria 3, and Mureka V9 — full songs with vocals from your lyrics, or instrumentals from a style prompt (flat price per track) — plus Sonilo Music for instrumental/background music of an exact length (`duration` 5–360 s, priced per second) and Sonilo Video Music for a soundtrack composed for an input video (pass a `video` URL; priced per second of the video's measured length, 10-second minimum). |
| `generate_sound_effect` | Sonilo SFX — sound effects (Foley, ambience, UI sounds, transitions, impacts) from a description (1–180 s), or synced to an input video (pass a video URL; returns the SFX track plus the video with the effects mixed in). MP3 or WAV, priced per second with a 3-second minimum; the tool echoes the exact cost. |
| `check_generation_status` | Poll a pending video, music, or sound-effect job (agents do this automatically) and fetch finished results. |
| `get_generation_history` | Your recent MCP and API generations — images, videos, music, or sound effects — with links that can be reused as inputs for edits or posts. Outputs older than 24 hours show as expired. |
| `save_to_assets` | Keep a result permanently: copies an output into your BudgetPixel assets, where it appears in your workshops and counts against your storage. |
| `get_credit_balance` | Current credit balance for the signed-in account. |
| `list_models` | The live model catalog with prices and capabilities. Works without signing in. |
| `search_stock_images` | Search the [free stock image library](/stock-images) — reviewed, AI-generated photos, illustrations, backgrounds, wallpapers and textures under CC BY 4.0, each with its credit line. Every plan, Free included; 10 credits per search. Search only: it never generates. |
| `upload_media` | Upload a local image, video, or audio file (up to 50 MB) to use as a generation input. |
| `create_social_post` | Publish finished images, a video, or a music track (with cover art, genre, and lyrics) to your public BudgetPixel feed — only when you explicitly ask. Pass a `theme_id` to enter the post in one of your clan themes. Posts are All Rights Reserved unless you ask for a Creative Commons license (`cc-by` or `cc0`), which can't be changed after publishing. |
| `list_my_themes` | The live clan themes you can post to: themes of the clans you own, moderate, or have joined, with each theme's brief and deadline. Free. |
## Billing
Generations through MCP spend the **same credits** as the BudgetPixel studio:
* Your plan's monthly credits, model discounts, and the Pro/Ultra daily free-models
allowance apply automatically.
* Images are priced per image, video per second by resolution, music per track, and
sound effects per second (5 credits/s from text, 15 credits/s of input video; 3-second
minimum) — the same published prices as the [API](/concepts/pricing-and-credits). Your
agent can check any price up front with `list_models`.
* Failed generations are never charged.
* MCP usage counts toward the **monthly spend limit and spend alert** you set under
[Billing](https://budgetpixel.com/developers?tab=billing) — the same guardrails as
API keys. When the limit is reached the agent gets a clear "spend limit reached"
error; your usage on the website is never blocked.
* Publishing a community post costs **10 credits** (spam prevention — same policy as the
API), and posts are limited to 20 per hour. Posts created this way carry a
**"via MCP"** label for transparency.
* A stock image search costs **10 credits**, charged even when nothing matches.
## Video format
Videos are MP4 files. Most are H.264. A few high-definition tiers are **H.265 (HEVC),
10-bit**: SeeDance 2.5 at 1080p, SeeDance 2.0 at 4K, and every video upscale. H.265 plays
in Safari, VLC, QuickTime and on most phones, but Chrome and Firefox without a hardware
HEVC decoder show a black frame with working audio. The file is not corrupted. Your agent
is told when a result is H.265, and `list_models` marks those resolutions, so you can
pick 720p when you need H.264. More in
[video output format](/concepts/models#video-output-format).
## Try asking
Once connected, prompts like these exercise the full toolchain:
* *"Generate a cinematic portrait of a red fox in falling snow — give me 3 options"*
* *"Animate the best one into a 5-second 720p video, gentle camera push-in"*
* *"Write and sing a warm folk song about two foxes in the snow"*
* *"Make a 5-second whoosh-and-impact sound effect for the scene transition"*
* *"Add realistic sound effects to this clip"* (with an uploaded video)
* *"Post the song to my BudgetPixel feed with the portrait as cover art"*
* *"Enter the fox portrait in my clan's current theme"*
* *"Find a free stock photo of a misty forest for my blog header, and give me the credit line"*
## Where results go
MCP generations work like API generations, not like studio generations: each output is
kept for **24 hours** and is **not** added to your asset storage. Result links your agent
shares are time-limited (about an hour; ask for the status again to get a fresh link).
Every MCP job is listed in the developer console's
[**Requests**](https://budgetpixel.com/developers?tab=requests) tab, labeled `MCP`, where
you can download it or save it to your assets. To keep something from chat, ask your
agent to save it — the `save_to_assets` tool copies the output into your assets, where it
appears in your workshops and counts against your storage like a studio generation.
## MCP or the REST API?
For AI agents and chat — Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor. OAuth sign-in, no keys, a human in
the loop. Best when *you* are creating, with an agent doing the driving.
For applications — API keys, per-model endpoints, full parameter control, webhooks-free
polling. Best when your *software* is creating on a schedule or at volume.
Both surfaces expose the same models at the same credit prices, share the same
24-hour output window and the same spend limit, and both list their jobs in the
developer console's Requests tab (`API` key prefix or `MCP`).
## FAQ
No. You sign in with your BudgetPixel account (Google SSO) during the connect flow —
no keys to create or paste. API keys belong to the [developer API](/authentication),
which is aimed at building applications.
Every paid plan — Starter, Basic, Premium, Pro and Ultra. Any account, Free included,
can connect and use `list_models` and `search_stock_images`; generation,
uploads, and posting require an eligible plan. Manage your plan at
[budgetpixel.com/subscription](https://budgetpixel.com/subscription).
The same catalog as the API — Seedream, FLUX, GPT Image 2, Nano Banana, Qwen and more
for images; SeeDance 2.0 / 2.0 Mini for video; Music 2.6, Lyria 3, and Mureka V9 for
music (plus Sonilo Music for exact-length instrumentals); Sonilo SFX / Sonilo Video SFX for sound effects. The catalog updates automatically as models
launch; `list_models` always returns the live list with prices.
MCP outputs are ephemeral, like API outputs: kept for 24 hours, listed under
**Requests** in the developer console (labeled `MCP`), and never counted against your
asset storage. Ask your agent to save a result (`save_to_assets`) — or use the save
icon in the Requests tab — to copy it into your assets permanently, where it shows up
in your workshops. Media links returned in chat are time-limited.
No — the posting tool is instructed to publish only when you explicitly ask, posts
cost 10 credits each, and every post is labeled "via MCP" on the feed.
This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.