# BeatDesign is a local, open-source Higgsfield Canvas any MCP agent can drive > Source: > Published: 2026-09-03 07:01:38+00:00 BeatDesign is a local, open-source Higgsfield Canvas. Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, or any other MCP-capable agent can operate the same canvas. If you have used Higgsfield, you already know the product: an infinite canvas for image and video, branches and references on one board, then a short cut out of those outputs. That canvas is the product. I wanted the Higgsfield Canvas on my disk, under Apache-2.0, without uploading first — and I wanted a general-purpose agent to drive it, not a chatbot trapped inside Higgsfield. So I built BeatDesign. Same Higgsfield Canvas job. Local project. Open source. Any MCP agent. Upload only when you confirm generation. Higgsfield’s canvas is a closed webpage. Drag in a client product shot or an unreleased campaign, and Higgsfield has the file before you have a generation. The branches live on their server. An idle month still bills. The Higgsfield Canvas is rented. BeatDesign keeps the Higgsfield Canvas locally. Studio, Canvas, Assets, generation history, and a short-form Editor live in one SQLite-backed Project — a folder you can copy. Import, branch, trim, preview, and export MP4 with no account and no API key. A source file is sent to a provider only after you confirm the run. You pay per generation, not for a month of Higgsfield you did not open. Local-first does not mean the model runs on your GPU. It means the Higgsfield Canvas stays yours. Higgsfield keeps the agent inside Higgsfield. BeatDesign does not embed a proprietary chatbot. It exposes 20 local MCP tools for Projects, Assets, Canvas, Generation, and Editor. Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, or another MCP host inspects and updates the same local Higgsfield Canvas that is open in the browser. A real loop: you import a local product video. The agent pulls the tail frame, writes the next-shot prompt, and drops the clip on the timeline. You watch the canvas update in the same window. The agent is not clicking Higgsfield pixels. UI writes and MCP writes go through the same Command Kernel, revision checks, and persisted receipts. A sidebar agent inside Higgsfield can talk. It cannot operate a canvas you own. You can ignore MCP and still use the canvas by hand. Agent-native is not agent-required. v0.2 is that local Higgsfield Canvas: image/video generation, Canvas branching, shared Assets, timeline trim/split/move, audio fades, selected-range AI redo, and browser-side H.264/AAC MP4 export. No system FFmpeg. Plus 20 MCP tools on the same project. It is still developer-first: Node.js and pnpm. No signed desktop installer. Captions, transitions, waveforms, speed controls, and multiple named timelines are not in this release. This is not a CapCut replacement, and it does not claim to beat Higgsfield on cinematic templates. It claims one thing: a local, open-source Higgsfield Canvas that any general-purpose agent can drive. If you already live on the Higgsfield Canvas, clone it and run it locally.