Apple Final Cut Pro NLE AI Skill Guide (Claude)

Overview & Engine Architecture

Final Cut Pro (macOS) centers on the Magnetic Timeline (primary storyline + connected clips), Libraries (.fcpbundle), Roles, and Apple Silicon Media Engine (ProRes/HEVC). Programmatic authoring is file-based FCPXML (versioned DTD — e.g. 1.11 → 1.12 (FCP 10.8) → 1.13 (FCP 11); newer hosts may export still higher). Headless encodes use Apple Compressor CLI. Motion templates live under ~/Movies/Motion Templates.localized/.

FCP 11+ highlights agents should know: Magnetic Mask, Transcribe to Captions (Apple silicon + Sequoia+), spatial video, higher timeline fps (90/100/120).