MCP server for Things 3 on macOS — full URL scheme support
MCP server for Things 3 on macOS — full URL scheme support. Exposed over MCP by the things mcp server, that capability becomes something an assistant can invoke while it works, not something you go and do afterwards.
Add to your ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:
Everything the assistant can do here goes through one of these:
Creating — The Creating tool exposed by this serverNavigating — The Navigating tool exposed by this serverInstallation goes through your MCP client rather than a global install: point it at @nkootstra/things-mcp on npm and it is fetched when the client starts. The copy-paste blocks for Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor are further down this page.
You will need 2 environment variables: THINGS_AUTH_TOKEN, THINGS_DB_PATH. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.
Among the developer tooling options, the useful question is rarely "what can it do" but "what does it cost you to run" — permissions, credentials, and how much of your context its toolset consumes. Things's toolset — Creating, Navigating — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by nkootstra; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.
This entry was verified against Things's own documentation before publication; SyncDev keeps the directory reviewed rather than auto-generated.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Creating | The Creating tool exposed by this server. |
| Navigating | The Navigating tool exposed by this server. |
{
"mcpServers": {
"things": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@nkootstra/things-mcp"],
"env": {
"THINGS_AUTH_TOKEN": "your-auth-token-here"
}
}
}
}Configuration as documented by the project. Restart the client after saving.
| Variable | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
| THINGS_AUTH_TOKEN | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
| THINGS_DB_PATH | Filesystem location the server is allowed to use. | Optional |
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