embody

OPEN SOURCE · MIT · TOUCHDESIGNER 2025+

create at the
speed of thought.

Download the .tox Read the manifesto
Embody running inside TouchDesigner — the extension panel docked beside a live network.
Demo video coming soon — until then, here's the manager UI.

THE TOOLSET

three tools, one idea.

Envoy

forward velocity.

45 MCP tools that plug Claude, Cursor, or Windsurf straight into your live session. Say what you want. Watch it happen. Idea to network in seconds.

Embody

lateral velocity.

Tag any operator and Embody externalizes it to version-control-friendly files on disk. Diff what changed, track who changed it, collaborate across branches, and restore any previous state. Your externalized files are the source of truth — not the binary `.toe`.

TDN

the substrate.

TouchDesigner networks as human-readable JSON. Your agent can read it. You can read it. Git can read it.

IN PRACTICE

say it. watch it happen.

  • Build entire networks from a sentence "Build me a noise-driven particle system."
  • Throw it away and try a different approach "Actually, make it react to audio instead."
  • Set any parameter "Set the noise frequency to match the audio input."
  • Write extensions "Create an extension class that manages scene transitions."
  • Debug errors "Why is my render chain producing a black output?"
  • Compare attempts "Show me what changed between this version and the last."

THE FORMAT THAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE

meet TDN.

TouchDesigner projects live in .toe files — opaque binary blobs that no diff tool can read, no AI can understand, and no version control system can meaningfully compare. TDN is a new file format we built to fix that. Entire networks exported as a single human-readable JSON file. Operators, parameters, connections, layout, annotations, DAT content — all of it, in text. 

{
  "format": "tdn",
  "version": "1.2",
  "type": "containerCOMP",
  "type_defaults": {
    "movieFileIn": { "playmode": "sequential" }
  },
  "operators": [
    {
      "name": "noise1",
      "type": "noiseTOP",
      "pos": [0, 0],
      "parameters": {
        "amp": 0.8,
        "period": "=absTime.frame * 0.1"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "blur1",
      "type": "blurTOP",
      "pos": [200, 0],
      "parameters": { "size": 8 },
      "inputs": ["noise1"]
    }
  ],
  "annotations": [
    { "title": "audio chain", "ops": ["noise1", "blur1"] }
  ]
}
  • Non-default-only — only what you actually changed gets written.
  • Type defaults hoisted — shared properties dedupe across operators.
  • Expression shorthand — =absTime.frame * 0.1 instead of verbose wrapper objects.
  • Round-trip safe — export → edit → import yields the same network.
  • The substrate for the entire workflow — forward velocity AND lateral velocity depend on it.

Diffable. Any text tool, any diff viewer, any AI agent can read it.

Without TDN, the rest of this is impossible.

Read the full TDN specification

GET STARTED

four steps to flow.

  1. 01

    download

    Grab the Embody .tox from GitHub Releases.

  2. 02

    drag and drop

    Drop it into your TouchDesigner project. That's the install.

  3. 03

    enable Envoy

    Connect your AI assistant to the session with one toggle.

  4. 04

    tag operators

    Double-tap lctrl on any operator to externalize it. Start building.

Requires TouchDesigner 2025.32280 or later. Works on macOS and Windows.

WHY THIS EXISTS

Everything is moving faster now. Everyone is shipping. We're entering the golden age of digital media, and TouchDesigner is positioned to become one of the leading platforms of content creation. Embody exists to help our community build faster and better than ever — open source, no strings attached, nothing SaaSy.

Read the full manifesto