Todoist MCP With Claude: Your To-do List in the Chat

Todoist has an official MCP server, built and open-sourced by Doist↗ (opens in a new tab), at https://ai.todoist.net/mcp. In Claude on the web or desktop you add it from the connector directory: search for Todoist, press Connect and sign in. In Claude Code you install Todoist’s plugin, or run claude mcp add --transport http todoist https://ai.todoist.net/mcp and sign in from /mcp. Either way Claude can then read your tasks and projects, add and reschedule tasks, complete them and more, acting as your Todoist account. This guide covers both routes, the prompts worth starting with, and the limits.

Both routes use the same hosted server and the same OAuth sign-in, so you never paste a Todoist API token. If MCP itself is new to you, start with what MCP is.

In Claude (web and desktop)

1. In Claude, open Customize, then Connectors, and browse the connector directory. You can also reach it from the + button in a chat.
2. Search for Todoist and choose Connect.
3. Sign in to Todoist in the window that opens and approve access. If nothing opens, check that your browser is not blocking the pop-up.
4. Start a new chat. Todoist’s help centre↗ (opens in a new tab) notes that its tools load at the start of a conversation, so a chat that was already open will not see them.

Todoist says the connector works on any Claude plan. On Team and Enterprise, an Owner or Primary Owner has to enable connectors for the organisation before members can add them. Todoist’s help article also notes a known issue at the time of writing: the tools do not load in the Claude mobile apps, so use the web or desktop app for Todoist prompts.

In Claude Code

Todoist documents two ways↗ (opens in a new tab). The quicker is its plugin, which sets up the MCP server for you. Run these inside a Claude Code session:

/plugin marketplace add doist/todoist-mcp
/plugin install todoist@doist

The browser sign-in runs the first time you use a Todoist tool. If you prefer to add the server yourself, run this in your terminal, then start Claude Code, type /mcp, pick todoist and authenticate:

claude mcp add --transport http todoist https://ai.todoist.net/mcp

That adds the server in local scope, for you in this project only. Add --scope user to have your to-do list in every project. There is a third route: if you have already connected Todoist in Claude, Claude Code shows your claude.ai connectors under /mcp when you are signed in with the same Claude account, so you may find it there already.

First prompts to try

• “What is due today and what is overdue?” A read that shows you how Claude sees your projects.
• “List my projects and how many open tasks each has.”
• “Add these to my Groceries project: milk, bread, coffee filters.” Several tasks in one call.
• “Move everything overdue in Work to tomorrow morning.” Todoist warns that changing the date on a recurring task can remove its recurrence, so ask Claude to reschedule rather than set a new date.
• “What did I complete last week?” The server has tools for completed tasks and productivity stats.

What it can change

The server acts as you. Todoist’s help centre says write actions are enabled, so Claude can add, edit or delete tasks, and the server’s open-source code↗ (opens in a new tab) includes tools to complete and reopen tasks, reschedule them, manage projects, sections, labels, comments, filters and reminders, assign tasks in shared projects, and delete objects. Todoist’s own help article lists sections, labels, comments and filters as unsupported, while the repository now has tools for them; the list Claude shows you for your connection is the one that counts.

The server does not offer a read-only mode, so the control is on the Claude side:

• In Claude, open the connector under Customize, then Connectors, and set its tool permissions. Anthropic’s help centre↗ (opens in a new tab) describes three settings per group of tools: Always allow, Needs approval and Blocked. Setting write and delete tools to Needs approval gives you a confirmation before each change.
• In Claude Code, the default mode asks before an MCP tool call, and you can pre-approve read tools in settings. A server you added yourself as todoist takes rules such as mcp__todoist__find-tasks; servers installed by a plugin use the longer mcp__plugin_<plugin>_<server>__<tool> form, so copy the name from /mcp.
• If read-only is what you want in a terminal, Todoist’s separate command-line tool has it: td auth login --read-only limits Claude to viewing tasks. That route uses Todoist’s CLI and a Claude Code skill rather than MCP.

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "mcp__todoist__find-tasks",
      "mcp__todoist__find-tasks-by-date",
      "mcp__todoist__find-projects"
    ]
  }
}

Shared projects and workspaces

Todoist is mostly personal, but the server also reaches shared projects and team workspaces your account belongs to. Its tool list includes finding a project’s collaborators, managing assignments, listing workspaces, and reading activity and project health. That makes prompts such as these possible:

• “Who are the collaborators on the Launch project, and what is assigned to each of them?”
• “Assign the three unassigned tasks in Launch to Sam and put them in the This week section.”
• “What changed in the Launch project since Monday?”

Be deliberate with the second kind. An assignment Claude makes on your behalf reaches another person’s list, and it is made with your account. Ask Claude to show you the plan first (“list what you would assign to whom, then wait”), and confirm before it acts. The same habit is worth keeping for anything that deletes or completes several tasks at once.

Limits to know

• Up to 25 tasks per call. Todoist documents this batch size, so a long list is several calls.
• Recurring tasks need care. Ask Claude to reschedule them; setting a fresh date can drop the recurrence.
• No mobile tools in Claude for now, per Todoist’s known-issue note.
• It is your account. Every change is made with your Todoist account, not under a separate name for Claude, so agree a habit if others share your projects.
• Sessions can drop. Doist’s documentation mentions frequent session disconnections on the hosted service for some users, and offers a locally run server as an alternative.
• Your task data goes to both Todoist and Anthropic, under each company’s privacy policy, as Todoist’s help article points out.

Running it locally instead

The same code runs on your own machine as @doist/todoist-mcp. That route uses a Todoist API token in the TODOIST_API_KEY environment variable instead of the browser sign-in, which suits a machine without a browser. Keep the token out of files you commit. Doist warns↗ (opens in a new tab) that its local HTTP mode runs every tool with that token and should stay bound to your own machine.

claude mcp add todoist-local -e TODOIST_API_KEY=<your token> -- npx -y @doist/todoist-mcp

Removing it

• Claude: Customize, then Connectors, then Todoist, and disconnect.
• Claude Code: claude mcp remove todoist for a server you added yourself, or uninstall the plugin from /plugin.
• Todoist: under Settings, then Integrations, remove Claude’s access. Todoist’s article lists this step too, so the authorisation ends on its side as well.

If a to-do list is not quite the job

Todoist is an excellent personal list, and the MCP server makes it an easy one to talk to. If the list is really a project that other people and an AI assistant work on together, and you want each of them to hold a role and to see who changed what, that is where a board fits better. fenbs is a board with lanes, roles and AI assistants as members whose changes are signed. The fair comparison is on fenbs vs Todoist, and connecting Claude is on the Claude page and the Claude Code page.