comonteur

name	comonteur
category	video-editing
description	Build and edit video scenes, shots, animations and timelines inside Blender through the comonteur helper library, in a project that has `timeline.blend`, `timeline.toml` or `.comonteur/`, or starting one from scratch. Use for: scaffolding a new video project, creating or changing a shot (`shots/*.blend`), title cards and kinetic text, keyframes and GSAP-named eases, staggered reveals, linking components from `lib/*.blend`, rendering review frames, assembling the VSE timeline from `timeline.toml`, and importing an existing HyperFrames project. Read this before writing any `bpy` code against such a project — raw `bpy` bypasses the ownership and journal system that lets a human edit the same `.blend` at the same time.
tags	["blender","vse","video","animation","montage"]

comonteur — start here

A human edits this .blend live, at the same time as you. Everything below exists to keep that safe. The scene is the source of truth. You mutate it. You never regenerate it.

Reach Blender through the official Blender MCP server's execute_python only. There is no comonteur MCP tool — the library is the typed surface.

The one code shape

Every piece of Python you send starts like this:

try:
    from bl_ext.user_default import comonteur as cmt
except ImportError:  # dev checkouts that put addon/ on sys.path
    import comonteur as cmt

with cmt.journal.batch("shot-03: title fade-up"):
    scn = cmt.scene.new_scene("shot-03", fps=30, frame_range=(1, 90))
    title = cmt.text.create(scn, "Ship faster", size=0.8)
    cmt.anim.tween(title, "location", 1, frm=-0.4, to=0.0, start=1, dur=18, ease="power2.out")

The batch is not optional. journal.set() and anim.tween() raise outside one (journal.py:86, anim.py:82). The batch writes the journal entries, bumps cmt_rev, gates the human-edit detector so your own writes aren't misread as theirs, and produces one labelled undo step.

Label batches for a human reading an undo menu: "shot-03: title fade-up", not "batch 1".

Hard rules

Break one of these and you corrupt the project silently.

• Batches save themselves. journal.batch() saves the .blend on exit once it's been saved once already (Blender's own save_version backup is bumped first). Don't call bpy.ops.wm.save_mainfile() yourself — that's a second save path outside the batch.
• Never regenerate. Mutate existing data, never delete-and-recreate it. scene.new_scene() returns the existing scene when cmt_id already exists (scene.py:20) — that's deliberate, don't route around it. Delete-and-recreate throws away every human edit and breaks the journal's history.
• Untagged data is human data. No cmt_origin means a human made it. Don't touch it unless the current instruction names it. Check cmt.provenance.origin(id_block) before touching anything you didn't create this session.
• shared means the human touched it. cmt.provenance.claimed_paths(id_block) returns every path a human has claimed since — anything whose live value no longer matches what you last wrote there. Those paths are lost to you: mutate anything else, and never delete a shared datablock. (Mechanism and limits: references/api.md.)
• Prefer cmt.* over raw bpy. Raw bpy isn't forbidden, but it's untracked — it never hits the journal, revert can't undo it, the human's ownership view won't show it. If you must, keep it to reads, or route the write through cmt.journal.set(obj, "path", value).
• Prefer mise run comonteur:<task> over raw shell, in a project that has them (check mise tasks). A task is what the human can re-run and what pins the tools — a command in a chat log is neither. Add a task instead of improvising a repeat. Ask permission, then run it yourself — don't tell the human to open a terminal.
• batch() does not nest (journal.py:61). One batch per logical unit of work. Not one per write, not one for the whole session.
• Ask before sourcing a missing resource. Comonteur's own default-creatable primitives (a new scene, a VSE strip, etc.) need no asking. For anything else missing — an asset, font, footage, or another project to reuse from — don't silently search disk or the web for it. Ask the human: search on disk (outside this project), search online asset providers, have them provide it, or generate it if that's possible. Only search outside the project directory once they've said which.

The loop

This is the loop for one shot. For work around it — starting a project, ingest, assembly, delivery — read references/workflows.md first.

1. Read the intent. The shot's timeline.toml entry — title, notes, and where it sits in the assembly. If notes names a rules:/blueprint: list, that list is a checklist you'll close out in step 5, not background color — write it down.
2. Read the scene before writing to it. cmt.introspect.outline(scn), describe(obj, "data"), animated_paths(scn). These are capped and truncated on purpose (introspect.py:1). Never dump bpy.data or walk a whole tree — that burns the context you need for the actual work.
3. Build, in one batch. See references/api.md. A named rules:/blueprint: value is almost always a known combination of cmt.* calls — check references/vfx-recipes.md before improvising one from scratch.
4. Look at it. cmt.preview.frames(scn, [1, 45, 90]) returns PNG paths under .comonteur/review/. Read those images.
5. Adjust, re-preview, report, stop. For a structural fix (wrong object, wrong path, missing keyframe), re-check with introspect.animated_paths/describe first — free, and catches the same mistakes a render would. Only call preview.frames() again once you've actually changed the scene, not to re-confirm what you already saw.

Gate: never call a shot done without reading a rendered frame of it. Blender fails silently and visually — text off-canvas, a missing material, an F-curve on the wrong array index. Code that ran without error proves nothing here.

Second gate: never call a shot done without closing out step 1's checklist. A render with no errors proves the scene doesn't crash, not that it matches what the notes asked for — that needs its own check, the same way code needs a test beside it, not just a clean run. For each rules:/blueprint: token, confirm it's actually present: cross-check animated_paths(scn)/ describe() for the structural evidence that rule implies (split-tilt-cards → a rotation_euler keyframe on the card root; scale-swap-transition → two overlapping scale+alpha tweens; see references/vfx-recipes.md for what each named rule should have left behind) and look for it in the rendered frame from step 4. A rule with no evidence in either place was skipped, not implemented — go back to step 3, don't report the shot done. If a snapshots/*.png HyperFrames reference still happens to exist from the import, treat it as a bonus fidelity check, not the mechanism — most projects only ever had HyperFrames prepare the storyboard and assets, never rendered, so no such reference exists.

Hit a real gap or bug in comonteur itself — a missing helper, a wrong doc, a broken mise task — tell the human and offer to draft a GitHub issue at https://github.com/davidB/comonteur/issues. Propose it, don't file it yourself.

Routing

Read	When
references/workflows.md	Starting a project, or deciding which workflow a directory is: order of work, ingest, rendering, delivery. Also covers delegating shots to a subagent when building more than a couple in one session.
references/api.md	Writing any scene content: scenes, text, animation, eases, components, preview, provenance.
references/vfx-recipes.md	A named look (spring-pop, underline draw, card tilt, scale-swap, typewriter, shatter, discrete text-state swaps, sine-wave idle loop, center-outward assembly, flash/marker word accents, directional entrances) or a blueprint: value from a storyboard — which cmt.* calls to combine, and how to install/reuse the GN VFX asset library.
references/timeline.md	Assembling or changing the edit: timeline.toml, anchors, reconcile, VSE strips, audio, transitions.
references/hyperframes-import.md	Converting an existing HyperFrames project into a comonteur project.
references/troubleshooting.md	A previously-working project shows broken/missing data after reopening a .blend — fonts, links, or other external references.

Read the matching reference before the first call in that area — these are command contracts, not background reading. Don't read them all speculatively.

Ownership, in eight lines

Every datablock you create carries cmt_id (stable id), cmt_origin, cmt_rev (bumped per batch). A text object bound with scene.bind_param() also carries cmt_param.

cmt_origin	You may
agent	mutate and delete freely
shared	mutate paths not in claimed_paths(); never delete
human	mutate only when the current instruction names it; never delete
(absent)	treat as human

The flip from agent to shared is automatic — a depsgraph_update_post handler catches human edits to your data (provenance.py:36). The human can override either way from the comonteur sidebar panel (Take ownership / Return to agent), acting on the active object — scenes and actions only ever flip automatically.

When a human has claimed a property you wanted to change, route around it and say so in your report. Don't overwrite it back, don't ask them to undo their edit.