add_area
Create a new Area in Things 3
Areas are top-level containers in Things 3 (e.g. "Work", "Personal", "Backlog"). The Things URL scheme cannot create Areas, so this uses AppleScript.
LABSCO SUMMARY
A weekly review becomes a conversation rather than an hour of dragging things around.
The combination that earns its place is search_advanced plus bulk_update_todos: find every stale inbox item by tag, area or creation window, then move, reschedule or complete the whole set in one call. Two things to plan around — the writes go through the Things URL scheme, so bulk changes need the auth token enabled first, and everything reads and writes the local database, which means the Mac running Things is the only place this works.
What it is
A read-and-write surface over the Things 3 database on your Mac. Reads come straight from the local database; writes go through the Things URL scheme, with Areas handled over AppleScript because the URL scheme has no command for them.
What you get
- Every built-in list as its own tool: get_inbox, get_today, get_upcoming, get_anytime, get_someday, get_logbook and get_trash
- Projects, areas, headings and tags listed, optionally with the items they contain
- search_advanced filters by status, start date, deadline, tag, area, item type and creation window — 3d, 1w, 2m, 1y
- get_tag_usage counts how many items use each tag and can return only the unused ones, which is what makes a tag cleanup finite
- add_todo and add_project create with notes, tags, deadline, checklist items and a when value that accepts today, tomorrow, evening, anytime, someday, YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM-DD@HH:MM for a reminder
- add_area and update_area create and rename areas and set their tags — there is deliberately no delete_area
- update_todo replaces or appends tags and rewrites, prepends or appends checklist items
- bulk_update_todos applies one change — move, tag, reschedule, deadline, heading, complete or cancel — to a list of to-do ids in a single round trip
- Read tools take limit and offset and return a Showing X-Y of Z header plus structured content, so a client can consume the raw dicts instead of parsing text
- Tasks inside Someday projects are kept out of Today, Upcoming and Anytime, matching what the Things window shows
- show_item and search_items bring the app itself to the right list or result
Requirements
macOS with Things 3 installed and opened at least once, and Enable Things URLs switched on under Things → Settings → General. It runs as uvx things-mcp, which needs uv (brew install uv). bulk_update_todos additionally needs the Things auth token that the same Enable Things URLs panel manages; the server reads it itself. Default transport is stdio; setting THINGS_MCP_TRANSPORT=http switches it to HTTP, with THINGS_MCP_HOST and THINGS_MCP_PORT defaulting to 127.0.0.1 and 8000.
Setup effort
One command — uvx things-mcp
USE CASES
01
Running a weekly review over a backlog that got away from you
Pull the lists that matter, find the items that have not moved in weeks, then apply one change — new list, new date, or completed — across all of them at once.
02
Capturing a task with its checklist while you are still talking about it
Create the to-do with notes, tags, a deadline and the checklist items in a single call, scheduled with a keyword, a date, or a date and time for a reminder.
03
Cleaning up tags that have accumulated for years
Get the usage count per tag, ask for only the unused ones, and look at what still carries the tags you want gone before you strip them.
04
Setting up a new project inside the right area
Create the area if it does not exist, then the project with its to-dos, notes and deadline underneath it.
05
Answering what actually got done last month
Read the Logbook over a look-back window and the recently created items next to it, so completions and new arrivals are visible in the same view.
26 tools
Counted once with only startup setup. Other versions, modes or optional credentials may expose a different list.
add_project
Create a new project in Things
add_todo
Create a new todo in Things
bulk_update_todos
Apply the same change to many to-dos in a single Things round-trip.
Use for weekly-review style operations — e.g. "move every grocery item in my inbox to Shopping List", "tag this batch with 'next-quarter'", "complete all of these". One URL invocation replaces N sequential update_todo calls, which makes 20-task moves feel instant instead of taking minutes.
All non-None parameters apply to every id in 'ids'. For per-item changes use update_todo individually.
get_anytime
Get todos from Anytime list
get_areas
Get all areas from Things
get_headings
Get headings from Things
get_inbox
Get todos from Inbox
get_logbook
Get completed todos from Logbook, defaults to last 7 days
get_projects
Get all projects from Things
get_recent
Get recently created items
get_someday
Get todos from Someday list, including tasks in Someday projects
get_tag_usage
Report how many items use each tag, sorted by usage (highest first).
Useful for cleaning up tags that accumulate over time. Identify rarely-used or unused tags first; then either remove them from any remaining items (via update_todo's tags parameter) or delete the tag manually in Things — the URL scheme does not support tag deletion or renaming.
get_tagged_items
Get items with a specific tag
get_tags
Get all tags
get_today
Get todos due today
get_todos
Get todos from Things, optionally filtered by project
Returns both human-readable text and structured JSON (the raw todo dicts plus pagination metadata) so MCP clients can consume either form.
get_trash
Get trashed todos
get_upcoming
Get upcoming todos
search_advanced
Advanced todo search with multiple filters
search_items
Search for items in Things
search_todos
Search todos by title or notes
show_item
Show a specific item or list in Things
update_area
Update an existing Area in Things 3 (rename and/or set tags)
The Things URL scheme has no area operations, so this uses AppleScript. Only the fields you provide are changed.
Note: there is no delete_area tool by design — deleting an Area in Things also deletes every project it contains, which is destructive and cannot be undone. Areas can be created, read, and updated here, but not deleted.
update_project
Update an existing project in Things
update_todo
Update an existing todo in Things
BEFORE YOU INSTALL
What to know first
Tools you get
26 tools when we connected. The documentation's tool list omits get-headings, which it mentions only in the pagination notes. Tools are called with underscores, such as get_tagged_items, not the documented hyphenated names, and there is no tool to delete an area.
Requires
- macOS (Things 3 is Mac-only)
- Things 3 app with "Enable Things URLs" turned on (Settings → General)
- A MCP client, such as Claude Desktop or Claude Code
- uv Python package manager: brew install uv
CONTEXT COST
Moderate Standing cost
Rated by the size of the 26 tool definitions that ride along on every turn, not by how many there are
INSTALLATION
Connect your client
Server setup
TERMINAL
uvx things-mcpMCP Clients
Claude Desktop
CLAUDE DESKTOP · JSON
{
"mcpServers": {
"things": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"things-mcp"
]
}
}
}Claude Code
CLAUDE CODE · TERMINAL
claude mcp add-json things '{"command":"uvx","args":["things-mcp"]}'
