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Bionic runs an AI agent on your own computer, so you can ask for what you need in plain language: “find three good shots of the harbour at sunset”. The agent searches your footage, looks at what comes back, and tells you which shots are worth using. Nothing is sent to a cloud AI service, and there is no subscription to pay for. Bionic is our recommended agent app. It is built for the kind of multi-step work editing involves, and it can look at your footage without any extra setup. Expect to spend about ten minutes on this.

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Before you begin

  • Jumper is installed and running
  • You have media analyzed in Jumper
  • Your computer can run a local AI model
Bigger models need more memory. Check what your machine can handle at canirun.ai, or read the memory estimate Bionic shows next to each model.If a model turns out to be too slow, download a smaller one. Nothing breaks.

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Setting it up

1

Install Bionic

Download it from lmstudio.ai/bionic and install it like any other app.
2

Download a model

Open the model picker and download a Local model, meaning one that runs on your own machine rather than in the cloud.Two labels matter when you are choosing:
  • Tool Use. Required. Without it, the model cannot operate Jumper at all.
  • Vision. Recommended. This is what lets the agent look at your footage.
Gemma 4 and Qwen 3.5 are good families to start with. Pick the largest size your machine handles comfortably, and remember you can swap it later.
Bionic also runs Cloud models, which are larger and faster but billed to your account. It can use Remote models as well, running on another computer on your network over LM Link.Both work with Jumper. Only Local keeps everything on this machine.
3

Connect Jumper

Go to Settings → MCP, find Manual MCP server setup, and click + Add custom MCP.Fill in the configuration:
  • Name: Jumper
  • Connection: Web address. Jumper runs as a local server rather than a command, so On this computer is the wrong option here.
  • Server address: http://127.0.0.1:6699/mcp
  • Authentication: Automatic Bionic's Custom MCP form filled in for Jumper, with Web address selected, the server address, and Automatic authentication
Click Add MCP, then quit and reopen Bionic. Connections do not always take effect until you restart.Once it is working, Status reads Connected and tells you how many Jumper tools are ready.
Bionic reads the same mcp.json that LM Studio uses, which lives at ~/.lmstudio/mcp.json on macOS:
Because the two apps share this file, setting Jumper up in one of them configures it in the other.
Already followed the LM Studio guide? Then Jumper is configured already, since Bionic reads the same settings. Check that Jumper appears under MCP and move on.
4

Check that the local API server is running

Go to Settings → Local Model API and check that Local API server is switched on and reads Running. It normally starts with Bionic.Bionic's Local Model API settings with Local API server switched on and running at http://localhost:1235/v1Jumper sends frames to this server to have them described for the agent. Without it, the agent cannot judge the shots it finds.
5

Let it see your footage

An agent that cannot see its own results is guessing from filenames, metadata, and search scores. One that can see will judge the shot, which is the difference between finding footage and finding the right footage.If the model you downloaded has Vision, you are already covered. Skip ahead.If it does not, Bionic can borrow a second model just for looking at pictures. Turn on the Vision Subagent in settings and choose a vision-capable model for it. You will see “Asking vision subagent…” whenever the agent stops to look at something.
A small, fast model as the vision subagent is often quicker than pushing every frame through a large main model. That is worth trying even when your main model already has Vision.
6

Try it

Start a session and ask something simple:
A working setup answers by describing what it can do with your footage. A broken one tells you it has no access.Then try a real request:
That exercises search, thumbnails, and the agent’s ability to look at frames in a single go. If it works, you are set up.

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What you can ask for

The agent searches by what a shot looks like, by what is said in it, and by who appears in it. It can export clips for you, and it can read a timeline out of Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, or Avid Media Composer and send an edited version back. See Agentic video editing for the full picture, and Timeline import and export for round-trips with your NLE.

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If something is not working

Jumper itself has to be running, because the connection only exists while the app is open. Open Jumper, then restart Bionic.If you added Jumper by editing mcp.json by hand, check that the file is still valid JSON. A stray comma is enough to stop it loading.
Two things to check. First, that your model has Tool Use, because without it the model cannot call Jumper however it is configured. Second, that Jumper is switched on under Settings → MCP.
It cannot see what it found. Either switch to a model with Vision, or turn on the Vision Subagent as described above.
If the message names Bionic’s local server, that server is checking for API tokens. Bionic has no setting to turn this off or to create a token. It can happen when Bionic picks up the Require Authentication setting from LM Studio.Turn token checking off, which is how a new Bionic install starts. Quit Bionic completely, then run this in Terminal:
Reopen Bionic. Other apps that use Bionic’s local server no longer need a token either. LM Studio’s own setting is not changed.If the message names LM Studio instead, LM Studio’s server is running, and Jumper uses it first. Either quit LM Studio, or follow the token step in the LM Studio guide. Then open Jumper under Settings → MCP in Bionic, set Authentication to Access token, and paste the token.
Searching a large library can take longer than Bionic is willing to wait. The default is 60 seconds, which is not always enough, so raise Request timeout (seconds) in settings.
The model is too big for your machine. Download a smaller size, or lower the context length in the model’s load settings.
Jumper asks the local server to describe frames, and it uses the first model the server reports. If you have an embedding model loaded alongside your vision model, unload it so the vision model is the one answering.

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For the curious

Jumper runs a local server at http://127.0.0.1:6699/mcp, which is the same mechanism Claude and Codex use to talk to it.Adding Jumper under MCP points Bionic at that address. Both ends sit on 127.0.0.1, so nothing leaves your machine.
Jumper’s get_thumbnail tool writes a JPEG to disk and returns the path to it. The describe_thumbnail tool then sends that image to a local OpenAI-compatible server, and the short description that comes back is what the agent actually reads. Jumper uses LM Studio’s server on port 1234 if it is running, and Bionic’s on port 1235 otherwise.Bionic starts its server itself when it launches, with just-in-time model loading. You will find it under Settings → Local Model API, or you can confirm it from a terminal:
LM Studio’s server has to be started by hand from the menu bar. Bionic’s does not.One consequence is worth knowing: describe_thumbnail uses the first model the server reports, which is why a stray embedding model can break the descriptions.Bionic’s vision subagent is a separate mechanism. It handles images inside the conversation itself, which is how a text-only main model can still reason about what a shot contains.
Bionic and LM Studio are made by the same team and share a configuration directory, ~/.lmstudio on macOS. That covers mcp.json, your downloaded models, and more besides.In practice you can install both, configure Jumper once, and switch between them freely. Models you have already downloaded show up in either app.
Both work well. Bionic needs less setup and handles long, multi-step jobs more gracefully, while LM Studio’s chat window is a friendlier place to experiment with a lot of different models.

All local agent guides

Other agent apps you can use with Jumper

LM Studio

The same setup in LM Studio’s chat app

Agentic video editing

Overview of how AI agents use Jumper

Agentic editing and data privacy

What stays local and what the model actually receives
Last modified on October 15, 2026