What Assistants Can Do

Read the project

The assistant reads the open project with get_session_overview: tempo, key and scale, tracks, mixer levels, markers and returns, and with clips every clip’s position and audio window. It reads further into one thing at a time: a clip’s notes, an automation curve, a plugin’s parameters, a sample’s tempo and slices.

Arrange and write

It adds, renames, colors, groups and reorders tracks, places samples and library patterns, writes and edits MIDI, draws automation, splits, duplicates and moves clips, and sets tempo, loop and section markers.

Shape the sound

It loads instruments, effects and presets, sets plugin parameters, routes sidechains and ducking, sets sends, groove and each track’s Mix section, and programs the built-in Sampler.

Measure the mix

analyze_mix renders the loop region offline and measures loudness, true peak, crest, six frequency bands and stereo width per track and for the master, and names tracks that fight in the same band. style_profile turns a set of references into target ranges to mix toward.

Render and split audio

It bounces clips or tracks in place, flattens a track, adds a Reverse Reverb swell, splits a clip into stems and transcribes a melody to MIDI. A stem split runs in the background; the assistant checks back and can cancel it.

Sort the library and projects

It searches samples, patterns and presets by name, tags, tempo, key or by how they sound, files them into collections, tags them, imports folders, and files projects and comments the way the project browser does.

Good to know

Gridshift asks before anything risky. Losing unsaved work, deleting for good or costing storage needs your yes in Gridshift or the client; the assistant cannot answer for you. The list is under “What Gridshift asks you first”.
Project changes are one undo step per call. ⌘Z takes back what the assistant did, and the undo tool names every step it took back, up to 50 at a time. Library, preset, project-browser and plugin-library sorting and saved files are not undo steps, as in the app.
It can check how Gridshift works. docs_search and docs_read search and read these docs, so the assistant looks a feature up before it acts or explains. Both need an internet connection.
It works on the open project. Arrangement, sound and mix tools act on the project in the window; project_list and project_organize also reach your other projects’ collections, versions and comments.

How the tools are designed

Tools map to what you want done, not to internal functions, and most take a batch: several tracks, clips or library items change in one call and one undo step.
Plugin parameters come with their type and readable labels, so the assistant sets values correctly without trial and error.
The session overview includes the project key and scale, so MIDI the assistant writes is in key.

What Gridshift asks you first

Before a tool replaces an open project with unsaved changes, writes over an existing file, replaces or resets the default project, throws away captured MIDI, or starts recording another app, Gridshift asks you. The same goes for anything that deletes for good or costs you storage: deleting a comment, a collection, a project, a saved ducking curve, a plugin category or an effect preset, Empty Trash and Delete Immediately in the Sample Library and the Instrument Presets, removing a tag from the whole library, turning Sync samples or Optimize Mac storage on, and downloading a separation model.The question appears in your AI client when it can show one; otherwise Gridshift shows an alert and bounces its Dock icon. For unsaved changes you choose whether to save first, throw the changes away, or cancel; a project that was never saved can only be discarded or kept.In Gridshift’s alert, Cancel is the default button: Return and Esc both cancel, and the button that goes ahead takes a click. No answer in time counts as no (60 seconds for the alert, 120 seconds for a question in the client), and the assistant is told you declined.

Tools: Session

Tool	Description
`get_session_overview`	Get project info, transport state, tracks, mixer levels, the timeline’s markers and the buses — the return, bus and master tracks that are not on the timeline, which is how you check whether a return already exists before adding another — in one call. Ask for the `clips` section as well to read the whole arrangement back — every clip’s id, position, length and audio window. That section is off by default because a finished song has hundreds of clips; `clips_track_name` narrows it to one track.
`undo`	Take back or redo the last steps, as `⌘Z` and `⇧⌘Z` do — including steps you made by hand. Ask the assistant to undo what it just did and it names every step it took back, such as Split Clip or Duplicate 2 Clips. Every Gridshift tool call that changes the project is one step, up to 50 at a time.

Tools: Transport

Tool	Description
`transport_control`	Control playback, recording, loop, tempo, the loop region and the playhead — all via a single `action` parameter (`play`, `stop`, `toggle_playback`, `toggle_loop`, `toggle_recording`, `go_to_beginning`, `set_tempo`, `set_loop`, `set_playhead`). Loop bounds and the playhead are given in beats, so both survive a tempo change. It also sets the metronome — on or off, the click sound (hi-hat, click or woodblock), whether it clicks always or only while recording, and a one- or two-bar count-in — and the record quantize grid recorded and captured notes snap to. The metronome and record quantize belong to this Mac, not the project.

Tools: Capture

Tool	Description
`capture`	Keep what you played without recording it, and record another app. Ask the assistant to commit the notes you just played into a track — the same as Commit MIDI Capture (`⇧C`) — or to throw a track’s captured notes away, which Gridshift asks you about first. The assistant can also record another app’s audio, such as a browser or a synth’s standalone app: Gridshift asks you before it starts, shows its capture window with a Stop button, and stops on its own after 10 minutes unless you ask for a different length, up to an hour. The recording lands on a new sample track at the start of the song.

Tools: Tracks

Tool	Description
`track_add`	Add a sample, instrument, return or empty automation track.
`track_configure`	Set volume, pan, mute, solo, color and return output routing for one or more tracks in a single call, plus `collapsed` to fold a group shut. Accepts a batch `operations` array. Giving a track inside a group its own color also stops it following the group’s. It also sets the Mix section’s stages: stereo width or mid/side balance, mono below a frequency, the Mix Filter’s amount and mode, and the clipper’s mode and ceiling. The pan law, an exclusive solo that silences every other track, and how a track is played are here too: its octave shift, its Keys Layout and Controller Layout, and whether it is the chord track. One undo step per call.
`track_manage`	Delete, duplicate, reorder and ungroup tracks, as the track menu does: delete the old snare track, duplicate the bass, move the pads below the drums. It also turns a sample track into an instrument track playing its sample in the built-in sampler and back, which removes the track’s clips and lists what went, and normalizes a track — raises its fader until its loudest moment reaches 0 dBFS, for which the track must have played since the last normalize. Several changes in one call are one undo step, so `⌘Z` brings deleted tracks back with their clips, plugins and sends.
`track_rename`	Rename a track.
`group_create`	Create a group track containing existing tracks as children.
`track_move_to_group`	Move a track into a group, or back to the top level.

Tools: Sends & Returns

Tool	Description
`send_configure`	Create, adjust, or remove sends from tracks to return tracks (level + pre/post tap). Accepts a batch `operations` array. Create a return track first with `track_add` type `return`. Bypass the reverb send mutes a send and keeps its level, so you can compare with and without it.

Tools: Ducking & groove

Tool	Description
`ducking_configure`	Set up ducking — make the kick duck the bass. A ducking curve is triggered by one track’s clips or notes and can pull down any number of tracks, each by its own amount. The assistant can change what triggers it, pick a curve from the library or draw one, set its length, start it early with lookahead, duck only the lows or the highs, rename or duplicate it, take it off one track, save its curve to the curve library, and delete a saved curve — which Gridshift asks you about first. Everything but deleting a saved curve can be undone.
`groove_configure`	Set the groove — the swing that MIDI notes, quantized slices and the metronome follow — for the project or per track: a template or the feel of a sample, its amount, and a track’s shift in milliseconds. One undo step per call.

Tools: Plugins

Tool	Description
`available_plugins`	Search installed AU plugins by name or manufacturer, and filter by effects, instruments or MIDI effects.
`plugins_list`	List all loaded plugins across tracks with bypass state and parameter count.
`plugin_get_parameters`	Get plugin parameters with type metadata, value labels, and pagination. Each parameter also says what the plugin itself shows for its value, like “75% [-2.1 dB]” on Serum. Many plugins show only the raw number, or nothing. Search finds “Filter 1 Frequency” from “filter freq”.
`plugin_configure`	Set parameter values by address or by name, as a raw number or the way the plugin shows them (“-6 dB”, “75 %”, “Low Cut”), where the plugin shows a unit, toggle bypass, and/or configure sidechain routing — all in a single call. It reaches everything on an effect’s card: Gain Match on, off or relearned, and the Mix popover — input level, dry and wet, and which part of the signal the effect works on, with its crossovers. A MIDI effect’s parameters and bypass work the same way. Bypass is one undo step and is saved with the project.
`plugin_add_remove`	Add or remove plugins on tracks. Supports batch operations across multiple tracks. MIDI effects — arpeggiators, chord generators — go in front of an instrument track’s instrument. Move this reverb to a return takes an effect off a track onto a new, fully wet return track and adds a send to it at zero, for you or the assistant to raise. The assistant can also move an effect or a MIDI effect to another place in its chain (its automation follows), duplicate an effect with its settings, add an effect straight from one of its saved presets, remove a track’s instrument or its sample (the clips stay), and load an instrument again after it failed to load.
`plugin_organize`	Sort the plugin library as `Settings ▸ Plugins` does: star favorites, create, rename and delete plugin categories, give one an icon, set the order of the categories, file plugins in and out of them and set their order, and rename or delete an effect’s saved presets. Deleting a category (the plugins stay installed) or an effect preset asks you first. None of it is an undo step.

Classic kick-to-bass ducking through a compressor, in one plugin_configure call. mode accepts audio, midi, trigger_impulse or none (to disconnect); audio and trigger_impulse need a plugin with a sidechain input bus, and the call returns a clear error otherwise.

{
  "track_name": "Bass",
  "plugin_slot_index": 0,
  "sidechain": { "mode": "trigger_impulse", "source_track_name": "Kick", "lookahead_ms": 5 }
}

Tools: Clips & MIDI

Tool	Description
`clip_delete`	Delete clips by ID or clear all clips on a track. Works with any clip type.
`clip_configure`	Change clips that are already in the arrangement: move them, resize them, re-window an audio clip into its file, set fades, gain or name. Supports batch operations. Moving a clip along the timeline leaves its audio window alone, and moving the window leaves the clip where it is.
`clip_edit`	Do what the clip commands do, on clips the assistant names: split at beats or at every transient, duplicate a block several times (as linked clips or independent copies), stamp a block over the bars after it, join MIDI clips, link or unlink identical clips, quantize clip starts or notes to a grid that follows the track’s groove, stretch an audio clip to a new length, align a track’s clips to their sample’s downbeat, trim silence, humanize velocities after a groove or phrasing shape, and voice-lead a chord clip in a style or hold it in a register. It also moves clips to another track or to a new track below their own, moves or deletes a range of bars across tracks (cutting clips at its edges), places one slice of an audio clip as a clip of its own, makes a clip play another of its track’s patterns, and reads or sets the level of each slice as Dynamics Mode paints them. A whole batch is one undo step, and the reply names every clip it made.
`midi_clip_create`	Create a MIDI clip with optional initial notes. Returns the clip ID for further editing.
`midi_clip_read`	Read all notes from a MIDI clip (pitch, position, duration, velocity).
`midi_clip_edit`	Add, delete, or modify notes in a MIDI clip, as the piano roll does: split notes at a beat, quantize their starts, carve a range out of them, stamp a chord, interval, arp, bass figure or progression at a beat and root, and set the clip’s own pitch snap. A batch is one undo step.

Tools: Sound sources & Sampler

Tool	Description
`sample_source_read`	Read the sample behind a sample track’s clips: its tempo and key, its Warp settings, its slice markers and downbeat, its stems, and how far each hit sits from the 1/16 grid — a drift that grows hit after hit means the tempo is wrong.
`sample_source_configure`	Change what the Sample Editor and the Warp section change, for every clip playing the sample: correct its tempo, original key or downbeat, set Warp’s character, target tempo, Quantize, pitch with cents, project-key link, formant and slice envelope, add, move, delete or clear markers, switch marker detection (auto with a sensitivity, manual, beat grid), re-scan tempo and grid, switch Normalize and Trim Silence (neither touches the file), and generate the sample’s stems and set each one’s level and solo. One undo step per call.
`sampler_configure`	Read or change the built-in Sampler on an instrument track: root note, voices, glide, gain, velocity, loop, sample start, filter, and its two envelopes and two LFOs with what they drive. Values out of range are refused, not clamped. One undo step per call.

Tools: Render & AI

Tool	Description
`stem_split`	Split a clip into stems on new tracks: a full mix into vocals, drums, bass and other, or a drum loop into kick, snare and cymbals. The parts land in a new group below the clip, the original is muted, and a stretched clip keeps its timing. It takes about as long as the clip plays, so the assistant starts it, checks back, and can cancel it; you see the same progress sheet as from the menu. `⌘Z` removes the parts. If the separation model is not on this Mac yet, the assistant can download it with `app_settings`, after asking you.
`audio_to_midi`	Transcribe a clip’s notes to a MIDI clip on a new instrument track below it. Works best on one melodic or bass part. The new track has no instrument yet — ask the assistant to load a preset on it. `⌘Z` removes the track.
`render`	Bounce in place clips or a whole track to a new sample track, flatten a track to audio with its fader, sends and ducking still live, add a Reverse Reverb swell into each clip (through the built-in reverb, a return track or a saved effect preset), or save clips into the Sample Library as a sample or as MIDI patterns. When flattening would change something that listens to the track’s notes, such as per-note ducking, the assistant asks you before it goes ahead. Library saves cannot be undone; the rest can.

Tools: Automation

Tool	Description
`automation_create`	Automate a parameter (mixer volume/pan, a plugin parameter, or a send amount) over a time range. Creates the lane and clip, and optionally seeds breakpoints or an LFO. `absolute` sets the value directly; `relative` stacks a modulation layer on top — so you can drive one parameter from several automations. Returns the lane index and clip ID.
`automation_clip_read`	Read an automation clip: its targets, blend mode and range, and breakpoints or LFO shape.
`automation_clip_edit`	Add, delete, modify, or re-curve breakpoints in an automation clip. It also replaces the whole curve with a basic shape (ramp, triangle, stairs, ease) and scales points in time and value, like the selection box’s handles. A batch is one undo step.
`automation_lfo`	Configure LFO generate mode on a clip: set the shape, bake it to editable points, or clear it.
`automation_target_configure`	Edit a lane’s parameter bindings: add or remove targets (one curve → many parameters), point a target at another parameter while keeping its range and mode, or change a target’s blend mode or range.

Tools: Samples

Tool	Description
`sample_search`	Search the Sample Library by name, folder, tags, tempo, key, loop or one-shot, and collection. `description` finds samples by how they sound, using the same Smart Search as the library’s search field. `similar_to` lists the samples that sound closest to a given one; `same_kit_as` lists the other parts of the same pack in a compatible tempo and key. Results include the sample’s tags, the sounds Smart Search heard, its measured loudness (LUFS), true peak, crest, band balance and stereo width, and how many projects use it. `lufs_min`/`lufs_max` and `width_min`/`width_max` filter on those measurements. Samples stored only in iCloud are listed too.
`sample_place`	Place one or many clips from an audio file, creating a sample track if needed. Each clip is a window into the file: `source_offset_beats` picks where it starts reading, `length_beats` how much it plays, plus fades and gain — which is how one long stem becomes an arrangement of separate sections. Pass `clips` to place many windows of the same file in one call. `match_project: true` fits the sample to the project’s tempo and key, the same way a library drop with Match Project on does, and the reply says what was applied. A sample stored only in iCloud is downloaded first.
`sample_replace_on_track`	Swap the audio source on a sample track, preserving clip positions. On an instrument track the sample becomes what its built-in Sampler plays. A sample stored only in iCloud is downloaded first.
`file_insert`	Drop files from this Mac onto the arrangement, as dragging them from the Finder below the last track does: each file on a new track of its own. Audio files make sample tracks, MIDI files instrument tracks, ReCycle loops sample tracks with their slices as markers, and Serum presets instrument tracks playing them (needs Serum 2 installed, up to 16 per call). All the audio, MIDI and ReCycle tracks of one call are one undo step.
`library_organize`	Sort the Sample Library: create and rename collections for samples or for patterns, file samples and patterns into them or take them out, and add or remove tags. Several changes go in one call, and each reports what it did. The changes sync to your other devices like the ones you make in the library window. It also handles the items themselves: favorite them, give one a name of your own, set a sample’s type (loop or one-shot) or play mode (slices or instrument), set the sound a pattern collection auditions through, and upload samples to iCloud. Trash takes items out of every list, and the assistant can put them back for 30 days. The assistant can also set a sample’s tempo — a number, halved, doubled or back to the detected one — move a pattern by whole octaves, bring samples home from iCloud ahead of use, let an instrument preset be a pattern collection’s sound, and edit a collection: its name, icon, color, sidebar order, the octave and General MIDI sound a pattern collection auditions in, and the Keys and Controller Layout of a sample collection. It lists the unsorted samples that sound like they belong in a collection and files them there, takes imported-folder names off samples, and removes a tag from the whole library. Deleting a collection (its items go back to Unsorted), removing a tag library-wide, Empty Trash and Delete Immediately ask you first. None of these changes can be undone with `⌘Z`.
`library_import`	Bring material in from this Mac: import a folder of samples and MIDI files into the Sample Library (its subfolders become tags), convert Serum, Vital, Diva and Zebra3 presets into instrument presets (each needs its own synth installed). An import can go straight into a collection, and can bring back files whose sound you deleted from the library before. For a big folder, ask the assistant what an import would cost first — how many files, how much space, and whether everything goes to iCloud. Nothing here deletes a file.
`pattern_search`	Search the MIDI patterns in the Sample Library by name, collection, tags, and drums or tonal. Each result names the pattern’s key, length and note count.
`pattern_place`	Put a library pattern on an instrument track as a MIDI clip, as dropping it on the timeline does. Without a track, a new instrument track named after the pattern is added. `match_project: true` moves a tonal pattern into the project key. One undo step.

Tools: Presets

Tool	Description
`preset_search`	Search your saved instrument presets by name, `tags`, `plugin` and `collection`, or by sound: `description` and `similar_to` use Smart Search on each preset’s rendered preview. Each result says whether its instrument is installed and whether a preview is ready. It also lists your effect presets, by plugin name or those of one effect on a track.
`preset_apply`	Load a preset onto an instrument track: its instrument, MIDI effects and effect chain, exactly as picking it in the preset library does, and renames the track after the preset. One undo step. It can also switch one effect to one of its own saved presets, as Switch Effect Preset does, and back to how it played before.
`preset_organize`	Create and rename preset collections, move presets in and out of them, and add or remove tags, as the Sample Library’s Instrument Presets and Effect Presets sections do. The assistant can also favorite and rename presets, rename a tag, move a preset’s notes by whole octaves, choose the pattern an instrument preset’s preview plays or the sample an effect collection’s previews play through, and move presets to the Trash and back for 30 days. Deleting a trashed preset for good or deleting a collection (its presets go back to Unsorted) asks you first. None of these changes can be undone with `⌘Z`. It also runs two library-wide jobs in the background: rendering every missing preview, and measuring which presets sound in another octave than their keys. The octaves only change once you agree to what the measurement found.
`preset_save`	Save a sound as a preset: an instrument track’s instrument, MIDI effects and effect chain as an instrument preset, with a collection and tags, or one effect’s settings as an effect preset. The clip the track plays becomes the preset’s preview. A name that is taken never overwrites — both presets are kept. Not undoable, like a save from the menu.

Tools: Mix analysis

Tool	Description
`analyze_mix`	Render the loop region (or a beat range you give) offline and measure it, per track and for the master: integrated loudness (LUFS), true peak, crest, energy in six frequency bands, stereo width and correlation. It also lists the tracks that compete in the same band, such as kick and bass at 20–60 Hz. Pass a `reference` (a library sample, an audio file or `version:<N>`) to get the difference to it and, with Smart Search on, how similar the mix sounds. Playback pauses while it renders.
`style_profile`	Turn a set of references (a sample `collection`, `samples` or this project’s `versions`) into target ranges: tempo, loudness, true peak, crest, band balance, width and the level of each part against the loudest. Returns a short summary an assistant can build to, then check with `analyze_mix`.

Tools: Project

Tool	Description
`project_configure`	Set the project’s title, musical key, scale and description. The title is the name shown in the window, the project browser and on the iPhone; the file on disk keeps its name. The key and scale drive scale highlighting in the piano roll, musical typing, and every sound source that follows the project key.
`project_file`	The File menu, by request: save, save as, save a numbered version, export the song to WAV, AIFF, FLAC, AAC or MP3, start a new project, open one, import an Ableton Live Set, and make the open project the default project or reset it. It also loads a saved version in place of the open project — with unsaved changes, Save first keeps them as a new version — and renames a version. None of these is an undo step.
`marker_configure`	Add, rename, move, recolor or delete the markers in the timeline ruler that label a song’s sections. Markers stick to a beat, so they survive a tempo change.
`project_artwork`	Get, set, or remove the project artwork (cover image). Supports PNG and JPEG. Randomize makes a generated abstract cover, as Randomize Artwork in the Project tab does. Set, remove and randomize are one undo step each.
`project_list`	List your projects with the collection each one is in. Ask for one project to get its versions and its comments, including the time in a bounce a comment points at. For the project that is open, comments you have not saved yet are included.
`project_organize`	Create and rename project collections and move projects in and out of them, as dragging them in the project browser does. The collections are shared with the iPhone app. The assistant can give a collection an icon, change its place in the list, and delete it (its projects go back to Unsorted). It also leaves, edits, ticks off, reorders and deletes comments on the open project or another one — the comments the Project tab and the iPhone show — and moves a project to the Trash, which takes it off the iPhone too; the open project cannot be deleted. Deleting a comment, a collection or a project asks you first. The changes cannot be undone.

Tools: Settings

Tool	Description
`app_settings`	Read and change the settings of this Mac that are not part of a project: the recording input gain, Smart sample search, Sync projects and Sync samples, and Optimize Mac storage. Turning Sync samples or Optimize Mac storage on asks you first; turning anything off loses nothing. It also downloads the models stem separation needs, about 300 MB each, after asking you.

Tools: Docs

Tool	Description
`docs_search`	Search these docs — how a feature works, what a command or shortcut does, what a setting means. Returns the best-matching pages with their path and the paragraph that matches, so an assistant can check how Gridshift works before it acts or explains. Needs an internet connection.
`docs_read`	Read one docs page as Markdown, by the path `docs_search` returned (for example `record/metronome`). Needs an internet connection.

Get Started

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Projects

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Arrange

Record

Edit in Focus Mode

Timing and Feel

Edit Samples

Sounds and Plugins

Library

Mix

Controllers

Sync and iPhone

Assistants (MCP)

What Assistants Can Do

Read the project

Arrange and write

Shape the sound

Measure the mix

Render and split audio

Sort the library and projects

Good to know

​Read the project

​Arrange and write

​Shape the sound

​Measure the mix

​Render and split audio

​Sort the library and projects

​Good to know

Read the project

Arrange and write

Shape the sound

Measure the mix

Render and split audio

Sort the library and projects

Good to know