Make videos in Cursor
Connect Idea to Motion to Cursor and you can ask for a video the same way you ask for anything else. Cursor writes the script, plans each scene and writes the animation code; we synthesize the voiceover, time it to the words, render the animation and hand back an MP4. It speaks Streamable HTTP directly, so connecting is one config entry carrying an API key in an Authorization header.
- 1Mint a connection key below.
- 2Add the config entry to your client and reload it.
- 3Connect a voice key, then ask for a video in chat.
01Connect Cursor
Generate a connection key if this client needs one, then add the server.
Pick your app
Chat apps
Editors & IDEs
Terminal
Generate a connection key
Add it to Cursor
~/.cursor/mcp.json (global) or .cursor/mcp.json (per project)
{
"mcpServers": {
"ideatomotion": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://api.ideatomotion.com/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer vai_YOUR_KEY"
}
}
}
}Generate a key above to replace vai_YOUR_KEY.
Where the config lives
The exact names Cursor reads, and what happens when one of them is wrong.
Cursor reads its MCP servers from a JSON file — ~/.cursor/mcp.json. It can live in either of two places, and the per-project one only applies inside that project. The entry goes under mcpServers, with the endpoint in url. Those names are not what every other client uses, and getting one wrong is not an error, it is silence: the file parses, Cursor starts, and the server never appears.
- Config files
- ~/.cursor/mcp.json (global) or .cursor/mcp.json (per project)
- Format
- JSON
- Root key
- mcpServers
- Endpoint field
- url
- Your key
- Written into the file as an Authorization header
- Fastest route
- A one-click install link, or the file below
- After saving
- Reload or restart Cursor — MCP config is read when the client starts
02Connect your voice
Narration is synthesized on your own ElevenLabs, Cartesia or Sarvam AI key. Silent motion graphics need none.
Your voice key
Idea to Motion generates the voiceover on your own text-to-speech account. Add an ElevenLabs, Cartesia or Sarvam AI key — it's stored encrypted and never shown again. Rendering is blocked until a key is connected.
What Cursor can actually do
Where the line between your assistant and the platform falls, and why it falls there.
Ask for a video from Cursor's agent panel the same way you ask for a change to the code — the tool calls run beside your editor, and you approve the plan there.
- It writes the content — a narrated script, a silent shot list, or a keep-and-drop cut plan for a video you upload — and hands it back for approval. Nothing is produced until you say yes.
- It directs every scene, then writes a self-contained Remotion component for each one. Submitted code is validated and run in a sandbox before it is accepted, so a mistake comes back as a tool error it can fix rather than a broken video.
- It renders stills of its own scenes on our servers and looks at them, which is why it can correct a card sitting across someone's face without you screenshotting anything.
- We do the parts a language model should not be doing: voice synthesis, word-level timing, captions, music, assembly and the final render.
- There is deliberately no export tool. Exporting spends money and picks a quality tier, so it stays a click you make on the platform — and a video you have already paid for re-exports for free.
A worked example
Type it into the agent panel, in the same thread you use for code.
“Make a 45-second widescreen explainer of the auth flow in this repo, for our docs.”
What comes back
- 1It opens a picker: the looks play as short clips, the narrator voices have samples you can hear, and you choose. Clients that cannot draw a panel get the same list as text.
- 2It writes the script and shows it to you. Tell it what to change and it rewrites — the video does not start until you approve.
- 3It directs and writes each scene, checking stills as it goes. This is the long part, and it is mostly quiet: a scene submission legitimately holds its request open while the server renders.
- 4The finished video appears in your projects here. Watch it, ask for adjustments in the same conversation, then export it from the platform.
Troubleshooting Cursor
The ways this goes wrong, and most of them go wrong silently.
The one-click install button isn't doing anything useful
The deeplink carries the whole config, key included, so it only becomes available once you have generated a connection key on this page — before that there is nothing to install. If Cursor does not catch the link, the Config file tab writes exactly the same entry by hand.
Cursor starts fine and the server never appears
Check the names in ~/.cursor/mcp.json. The entry belongs under mcpServers, and the endpoint goes in url. These differ between clients — some read mcpServers, some servers, some context_servers — and a wrong one is not an error: the file parses, Cursor starts, and the server is simply never loaded. Copy the snippet in step 1 rather than adapting one from another client's documentation.
It says it cannot connect, or every tool call comes back 401
A key that is wrong, truncated or revoked gets a 401, and most clients report that as a failed connection rather than as an auth problem. Keys are shown once and stored hashed, so there is no way to read an old one back — generate a fresh one in step 1, then use the one-click link again, which carries the new key with it and reload Cursor. Paste the whole vai_ string including the prefix; the old key can be revoked from the same panel.
You saved the config and nothing changed
This can live in two places: ~/.cursor/mcp.json (global) and .cursor/mcp.json (per project). A per-project file only applies while you are working in that project, so an entry in the wrong one reads exactly like a config Cursor is ignoring. Put it in the user-level file if you want it everywhere, and reload Cursor either way.
The tools work but it cannot produce the voiceover
Narration and transcription run on your own ElevenLabs, Cartesia or Sarvam AI key rather than ours, so a narrated or recorded video needs one connected — step 2 on this page, or the set_voice_key tool from inside Cursor. Silent motion graphics need no voice key at all, so "make it a silent motion graphic instead" is a valid way past this.