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Vidova Plugin Lets Claude Edit Video on a Real Timeline

Vidova, the AI video editor built in Fredericton by UNB computer science student Younes Laaroussi, released a free plugin for Claude on October 12. Ask for a cut, captions or music, and the edit appears live in Vidova's browser editor, where you can change it by hand.

Closing card: a video timeline with clip, caption and music tracks, a vertical phone frame and export badges for MP4, Premiere and DaVinci; Vidova, built in Fredericton

Vidova is an AI video editor built in Fredericton. You describe the video you want, and the software cuts, captions, animates and previews it on a timeline you can still edit by hand. On October 12 its developer published a free plugin for Claude that lets Anthropic's assistant make those edits directly. Each change appears live in the Vidova web editor.

The developer is Younes Laaroussi, a computer science student at the University of New Brunswick (personal site). In June, UNB named him the first recipient of the SmartSkin Emerging Leaders in AI Prize, a $2,500 award for a Fredericton-campus computer science student, presented at the Atlantic AI Summit kickoff. UNB's announcement describes him as the founder of Vidova. On his own site, he writes about what he learned "when I set out to build Vidova AI."

What the editor does

According to Vidova's about page, the editor runs in the browser, on iPhone and on Mac. You upload footage or start from a written prompt, then ask for something like "cut my podcast into three vertical clips with captions." The software edits the timeline and previews frames to check its own work. You can keep, change or undo any edit.

It can:

  • cut, trim and arrange clips
  • add animated captions, titles and logo intros
  • generate images, video, voice and music
  • add sound effects and cut to the beat of a song
  • track objects and cut people out of a scene

You can save versions, compare branches and combine edits. Finished work exports as an MP4, as an FCPXML file for Adobe Premiere Pro, or as an OTIO file for DaVinci Resolve, so an editor can finish the job in the professional tool they already use.

A separate Vidova recorder captures screen, camera and microphone on Mac, Windows and Linux. It zooms automatically on clicks and has a camera that follows the cursor. Recordings open in the editor like any other clip.

Laaroussi's site describes the engineering underneath: a native Windows screen recorder that switches between NVIDIA, AMD and software video encoders while it runs, and a web editor that uses Google's Veo 3.1 video model and Lyria music model.

The October 12 plugin

The plugin has two parts, its README explains. One is Vidova's Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, which gives Claude the editor's tools. The other is an "edit-video" skill that tells Claude when to use Vidova and in what order to call those tools.

The server itself is not new to the plugin. Vidova's about page says Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Codex and other MCP clients can already edit a Vidova project by adding the server address and signing in. What the plugin adds is the skill and a one-step install for Claude Code.

In Claude Code, it installs with two commands. You then sign in to Vidova once in the browser, where you can also create a free account. Setup details are in Vidova's MCP docs. The README's examples include "Make a 30 second vertical cut of my latest video with captions." The edits arrive in the web editor, "where you can watch it and change it by hand."

The README also spells out what the plugin sends. Sign-in uses OAuth, and the plugin stores no passwords or keys. Files go to Vidova's storage only when you ask Claude to upload them. The plugin runs no hooks, scripts or local programs. Its code is MIT-licensed, while the Vidova service has its own terms.

Pricing

The free plan gives 750 credits once. They do not expire, but free previews and exports carry a Vidova watermark. Signing up needs a card check, though no charge is made. Paid plans remove the watermark and start at $19 a month for 2,000 credits; a year costs the same as 10 months. Generations, analysis and renders done through the plugin use credits from your plan.

Sources

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