Live Sidekick — Development skill for Claude Code

live-sidekick

**Drive Ableton Live 12 from Claude Code — and know exactly what the Live API really does.**

A field-tested toolkit for controlling Ableton Live from an AI agent running in WSL2, built around an [MCP](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) server. It ships the glue that makes the WSL → Windows → Live chain reliable, sample-accurate audio tooling, and a **measured** map of the Live Object Model: which calls work, and which ones answer `success` while doing nothing.

flowchart LR
    CC["Claude Code
(WSL2)"] -- stdio --> MCP["MCP server
(Windows Python)"]
    MCP -- "TCP 127.0.0.1:9877" --> RS["Remote Script
inside Live 12"]
    RAW["ableton_raw.py"] -. "bypasses MCP" .-> RS
    PREP["preparer_extrait.py
analyse_audio.py"] -- "ffmpeg.exe" --> WAV[("WAV on a
Windows drive")]
    WAV --> RS

Why

Live's Python API is undocumented, changes between versions, and fails **silently**. Every row below was measured on Live 12.4.3, not read in a forum:

You would expect	What Live actually does
Setting end_marker trims an arrangement clip	Accepted, read back, length unchanged
Setting start_marker trims the start	Silently reset to 0.0
start_time moves a clip	Read-only — arrangement clips cannot be moved
Clip fades are scriptable	fade_in_length / fade_out_length do not exist
Automation can be written on arrangement clips	Refused: "Not a session clip"
An imported file plays at its own length	Live warps it: 15.000 s becomes 16.000 s (+6.1 %)
An mp3 starts at the same point in Live and ffmpeg	84.6 ms apart — the LAME priming silence
A property read right after a write is fresh	Extent properties are stale until the next tick
There is an export / render API	None. Rendering stays manual (Ctrl+Shift+R)

The consequence shapes the whole toolkit: **Live assembles, it does not edit.** Extracts must arrive already cut and alre