GimpMCP

An MCP server that lets an LLM (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, etc.) drive a running GIMP 3.0 instance — images, layers, selections, gradients, text, transforms, filters, or arbitrary Script-Fu code.

If GIMP's window is open, you watch the edits happen live.

Setup

1. Install GIMP 3.0.
2. Install this server:

   python -m venv .venv
   .venv\Scripts\pip install -e .

3. Register it with your MCP client (claude mcp add, or .mcp.json):

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "gimp": {
         "command": "C:\\path\\to\\GimpMCP\\.venv\\Scripts\\python.exe",
         "args": ["-m", "gimp_mcp.server"]
       }
     }
   }

Turn on live mode

In GIMP: Filters ▸ Development ▸ Script-Fu ▸ Script-Fu Server → keep 127.0.0.1 / port 10008 → Start.

That's it. Now ask Claude things like:

open C:\photos\cat.png in GIMP, resize it to 800x600, and export it as cat_small.jpg

and you'll see each step land in the GIMP window.

What it can do

35 tools, grouped:

• Images — open, create, export, resize, crop, rotate, flip, flatten, inspect, close
• Layers — list, add, duplicate, move, fill, opacity, visibility
• Selections — rectangle, ellipse, clear
• Paint & type — gradient fill, text layers, font listing
• Adjust & filter — blur, sharpen, brightness/contrast, desaturate, invert
• Escape hatches — apply_gegl_filter (any of GIMP's ~400 GEGL filters) and run_script_fu (arbitrary Scheme against the full ~2,000-procedure PDB), with search_gimp_api to discover what exists

Run gimp_status any time to check what it's connected to.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
Tools refuse with a "start the server" hint	GIMP is open but the Script-Fu server isn't running — see Turn on live mode above
"Can't find GIMP"	Set GIMP_EXECUTABLE to your full gimp-console-3.0.exe path
Edits happen but you can't see them	You're on a headless instance; open GIMP and start its Script-Fu server
A procedure errors out	You're likely hitting a GIMP 2.x name that no longer exists — see the notes below

Verified on Windows + GIMP 3.0.8. macOS/Linux detection is implemented but untested. GIMP 2.10 is not supported.

Digging deeper

NOTES.md — the GIMP 3.0 PDB changes that trip everyone up (renamed procedures, the removed plug-in-* filter family, the text-layer footgun), the socket protocol, and how to find procedures GIMP doesn't document.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.