Ableton just shipped the Extensions SDK · June 2026 · It's TypeScript. Patchwright isn't.
Patchwright is a node-graph builder for Ableton Live Extensions —
a hybrid of Live and Unreal Blueprints. Wire trigger → get → transform → set,
and it hand-writes the readable TypeScript, bundles it, and exports a real,
installable .ablx. No Node. No terminal. No tab full of red squiggles.
The graph on the right is live. Drag a node and the cables follow — or nudge the
transpose value and watch the notes move on the roll below it.
(Yes, it's actually running on this page. We couldn't resist.)
transpose
value and the notes move in real time. The same idea powers the in-app preview.
Ableton shipped Extensions: small TypeScript programs that read and edit your Live Set — tracks, clips, notes, scenes, devices — fired from a right-click menu. It is genuinely powerful. It is also TypeScript and Node and a terminal, which is roughly three things further than most producers ever want to go. Max for Live let producers build for Live's sound engine by patching instead of programming. Patchwright brings that same bargain to the Extensions SDK.
npm is and forgive it.01 · Visual builder
A Blueprint-style canvas where the wiring is the program. Your trigger nodes are the twelve real SDK context-menu scopes. The data and action nodes are auto-generated from the SDK itself, so they can't drift out of date.
And because this is music, there are nodes that think in music: transpose quantize chord from scale. The generated TypeScript stays readable — it's the escape hatch for the day you decide you do write TypeScript after all.
02 · Interactive preview
Here's the part that's hard to fake, so we didn't: Patchwright runs your actual generated extension against a simulated Live Set, right in the browser, and shows you the before→after diff on a piano roll and a clip grid.
Not a mock-up of what it might do. The real shipping code, executed. If the preview
transposes the wrong notes, so will the .ablx — which is exactly why
you'd rather find out here.
03 · Dialog designer
Extensions can pop a webview dialog. Patchwright gives you a drag-and-drop, Live-themed designer for it — sliders, toggles, dropdowns, all wearing Live's own CSS tokens so it looks like it belongs.
What you arrange here is exactly what ships inside the .ablx.
No "design hand-off." No second tool. The mockup is the build.
Tell the embedded Claude assistant "color clips by pitch class" and it patches the graph for you. Bring your own Anthropic key — your prompts, your bill, your business.
The whole builder — esbuild-wasm + JSZip — runs in the browser. It bundles and hands you a real .ablx without ever touching your filesystem or asking you to install a thing.
One shared codegen core. The web app designs and exports; the Tauri desktop shell adds one-click build / run / hot-reload / debug straight into Live. Only the run-loop is platform-specific.
The builder is free and open source. The paid stuff later is the convenience stuff (hosted gallery, pro packs). The thing that turns your idea into an .ablx stays yours.
A few extensions that started as "I wish Live just did this." Some save real time across a whole project; some scratch an itch only you'll ever feel. All of them are an afternoon of wiring in Patchwright — the kind of small, exact tool that fits your workflow because you shaped it yourself.
Exports every selected clip and names each file from its track, tempo and key. Twenty manual renames become one click.
Color-codes every clip by its dominant pitch class, so a glance at the Session view tells you what's actually in there.
Trims dead air and perfectly-silent gaps from clips across the project. Tighter sessions, smaller exports, nothing you'll miss.
Snaps every track name to one capitalization scheme. Your template stays tidy without you policing it by hand.
Finds clips that almost loop cleanly and snaps their ends to the grid. The 3ms nobody could place: handled.
Traces every frozen track back to the device chain that made it and writes the lineage into the clip comment. Future-you says thanks.
Stamps each take with the weather at the moment you recorded it. Turns out "overcast, 11pm" is reliably your best vocal.
Quietly logs every one-BPM nudge so you can see the shape of your own indecision. A complete record, no judgment.
Sweeps out empty scenes you've scrolled past for nine months. Small task, surprisingly good feeling.
Flags any MIDI clip that reads the same forwards and backwards. Rare, harmless, and exactly the kind of thing you'd want flagged.
None of these shipped with Live. Each is a graph you could wire this afternoon — no TypeScript, no terminal, no setup. Open the builder, free →
It's free, it's open-source, and it runs in this same browser tab you're already in. Bring an Anthropic key if you want the assistant; bring nothing if you'd rather patch by hand.
.ablx