Penpot adds MCP server

Penpot released version 2.15 on April 28 with what it called the main feature of the update: an MCP server designed to connect Penpot files to external AI clients. The open-source design software company said the release moved its MCP setup from an earlier, more technical approach to an in-app workflow with remote configuration. Penpot’s documentation says the server can expose a design file’s structure to compatible clients, including components, styles, tokens, pages and layers. The company has since published setup and usage guides showing the feature with tools such as Cursor. ### What exactly did Penpot ship in version 2.15? Penpot’s April 28 release post said version 2.15, titled “Master of Puppets,” centered on the Penpot MCP Server. The company said the update simplified setup by adding remote configuration inside the product, rather than relying only on a more technical installation path. Penpot’s help documentation describes the MCP server as a service that exposes tools to an AI client and forwards requests to Penpot. The same documentation says a plugin running inside Penpot connects the open file to the server, while the AI client — including tools such as Cursor or Claude Code-style clients — connects with a server URL and an MCP key. (community.penpot.app) ### What data can outside tools actually see? Penpot’s help center says an MCP-connected agent can “read and modify” file structure including components, styles, tokens, pages and layers. The documentation lists design tasks such as creating typography, spacing and color tokens, generating variants, renaming layers and organizing libraries. The same page lists developer tasks that include extracting layout structure and UI metadata from a page, generating HTML and CSS, inspecting tokens and styles for translation into code variables, exporting assets, and mapping components to code through aligned names and identifiers. (help.penpot.app) Penpot says MCP operates on the page currently in focus in Penpot, and only one browser tab can be active for MCP at a time. ### How is Penpot positioning the workflow? Penpot’s product page says the MCP server is “agnostic” and can connect Penpot with “any AI agent, any LLM.” The company says the system supports “multi-directional workflows,” describing use beyond one-way design export and into workflows where agents can both inspect and modify design files. Laura Kalbag, writing on Penpot’s blog on May 14, said the combination of Penpot MCP, an AI client and AI models can generate designs and code from Penpot files, or create new Penpot designs from code and prompts. (help.penpot.app) In that guide, she used Cursor as the example client but wrote that Penpot MCP can work with other clients and models. (penpot.app) ### Does this apply to self-hosted Penpot too? Penpot’s technical documentation says MCP support starts with version 2.15. The same configuration guide says that, because of what it called architectural constraints, using the MCP server requires running only a single instance of Penpot in self-hosted deployments. Penpot also documents MCP under account integrations for hosted users, where users can enable or disable the feature, retrieve the server URL and manage a personal MCP key. (penpot.app) The help pages say the key is non-recoverable and only one key can exist per user at a time. ### What has Penpot published since the release? Penpot’s community forum shows the 2.15 release post was followed by additional MCP material, including showcase discussions and hands-on documentation. (help.penpot.app) The company’s blog published a “Set up Penpot MCP with Cursor in 5 steps and no code” guide on May 14, with instructions to enable MCP, generate a key and add configuration to Cursor. (help.penpot.app) Penpot’s help center now includes MCP-specific pages on setup, prompting with tokens and design-file structure practices for “humans and MCP-connected agents.” Those documents are live as of mid-May 2026 and form the next public reference point for teams testing the feature. (help.penpot.app) (community.penpot.app)