AI assistants (MCP)

The Vionlabs MCP server lets AI assistants work with your catalog: search titles, find clips and thumbnails, build smart lists and recipes, and publish them. It uses the Model Context Protocol, so it works with Claude, ChatGPT and any agent built on an MCP SDK.

The assistant only ever sees what you can see in the Vionlabs app: your organization's catalogs and the features your role allows. It cannot delete anything.

Before you start

• MCP access is enabled per organization. Ask your Vionlabs contact or support to enable it for yours.
• You sign in with your normal Vionlabs account. If you belong to several organizations, contact support before connecting.
• The MCP URL is https://mcp.vionlabs.com/mcp.

Connect Claude

1. In claude.ai open Settings → Connectors and choose Browse connectors.
2. Find Vionlabs and choose Connect. On Team and Enterprise plans an owner may need to add it for the organization first.
3. Sign in with your Vionlabs account.

If Vionlabs isn't listed yet, choose Add custom connector instead and paste the MCP URL.

Claude Desktop and the Claude mobile apps use the same connectors as claude.ai once you are signed in. In Claude, found thumbnails appear as a grid of frames and clips play right in the chat.

Connect ChatGPT

1. In ChatGPT open Settings → Security and login and turn on Developer mode.
2. Under Plugins, choose +, paste the MCP URL and pick OAuth as the authentication.
3. Sign in with your Vionlabs account when asked.

Creating and publishing needs a ChatGPT Business, Enterprise or Edu workspace. On other plans ChatGPT can only use the read tools.

Connect your own agent

Agents and backend systems without a person to sign in use an API key.

1. Ask an administrator to add a dedicated member for the agent (for example agent@yourcompany.com) with the role and catalog access the agent should have.
2. Under Settings → API Keys, create a key with one or more MCP permissions (read, write, publish), choose the agent member under Acts as, and pick the catalogs it may use. Creating such a key requires permission to manage both API keys and users.
3. Exchange the key for an access token as described in Authentication, then send it as Authorization: Bearer <access_token> to the MCP URL.

With the official TypeScript SDK:

import {Client, StreamableHTTPClientTransport} from '@modelcontextprotocol/client'

const mcpUrl = new URL('https://mcp.vionlabs.com/mcp')
const client = new Client({name: 'my-agent', version: '1.0.0'})
await client.connect(
  new StreamableHTTPClientTransport(mcpUrl, {
    requestInit: {headers: {Authorization: `Bearer ${accessToken}`}},
  })
)

const {structuredContent} = await client.callTool({name: 'list_catalogs', arguments: {}})

The key can do what its member can do, limited to the catalogs and permissions chosen on the key. Deactivating the key or removing the member stops access within a minute.

What the assistant can do

Start with list_catalogs: every other tool works in one catalog and takes its catalogId.

Publishing delivers content to your downstream systems, so Claude and ChatGPT ask you to confirm before they publish. If your organization publishes only through review, the assistant can't publish directly: request the review in the Vionlabs app. People who sign in get all three permissions, limited by their role in Vionlabs.

Example prompts

Name the catalog and the title, or ask the assistant to search for one.

• "Find 5 thumbnails of The Fellowship of the Ring showing only the main character, with the title logo."
• "Vertical 9:16 thumbnails from the last 40 minutes, with nobody in the frame."
• "Find 3 high-octane action clips of 20 seconds, at least two minutes apart."
• "Clips from between minute 30 and minute 60, but don't preview them."
• "Which titles in this catalog are most similar to The Fellowship of the Ring?"
• "Make a smart list of these five titles, called Autumn sci-fi."
• "Turn the second and fourth thumbnails into a recipe, then publish it."

Clips and thumbnails are searched in what Vionlabs has analysed for each title, so a title still being processed has no results yet. Vertical crops other than 9:16, 1:1 and 2:3 need a newer analysis version; the assistant tells you when a catalog doesn't have it.

Data and privacy

• The assistant reaches your data only through the tools above, as you, with your role and catalog access. Other organizations' catalogs are never visible to it.
• What a tool returns, such as titles, timestamps and preview stills, goes into your conversation with the assistant. Your AI provider's own terms decide how it keeps that conversation.
• Vionlabs logs which tool was called, by whom, in which catalog, how long it took and whether it worked. It doesn't log what you asked, the tool arguments or the results.
• Clip and thumbnail previews stream through a link that only works for that title, for one hour.

The Vionlabs privacy policy applies.

Limits

To protect the service, each person or API key can make about 600 read calls, 60 clip or thumbnail searches, 120 changes and 20 publishes per hour, with a higher shared limit for the whole organization. When a limit is reached the assistant is told when to try again.

Troubleshooting

• "MCP access is not enabled for your organization": ask your Vionlabs contact to enable it.
• "Sign in with an organization": your account belongs to several organizations; contact support.
• "Catalog not available": you, or the API key, don't have access to that catalog. Call list_catalogs to see the allowed ones.
• Asked to sign in again: your session expired; connect again from the connector settings.
• No thumbnails or clips for a title: the title may not be analysed yet, or nothing in it matches every condition. Ask with fewer conditions.

Support

Email info@vionlabs.com or use vionlabs.com/support. Service status is on status.vionlabs.com.