Agenda Support for Model Context Protocol (MCP)

drewmccormack · February 7, 2026, 11:31am

We are adding support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) in Agenda 22.2 for macOS. MCP is an open standard that allows AI assistants like Claude and Codex to interact directly with your apps. With MCP enabled, your AI assistant can search, read, create, and edit notes in Agenda — all from the conversation.

MCP is disabled by default. You can find it in Agenda > Integrations, where you can enable the server and copy the configuration for your AI tool of choice.

If you can’t get it configured, often the best thing to do is ask the AI Assistant itself for instructions.

What does it allow you to do? Here are some examples:

Ask your AI assistant to find notes by text, tags, people, or dates
Have it read the full content of a note and summarise or analyse it
Create new notes, projects, or categories from a conversation
Append action items or follow-ups to existing notes
Mark notes as completed, on the agenda, or pinned
Open a specific note in Agenda from your AI assistant
Ask for help on any Agenda topic, or links to videos

A note on privacy: Agenda’s MCP server runs locally on your Mac and does not upload your data anywhere. However, any note content retrieved by your AI assistant will be sent to that assistant’s cloud service (e.g. Anthropic, OpenAI) as part of the conversation. Only enable MCP if you are comfortable with this.

daveb08 · February 10, 2026, 12:35pm

Will this be for iOS, iPadOS and Mac?

konetidy · February 10, 2026, 8:06pm

What are the instructions for adding the MCP to Claude desktop?

Step by step please, everything I’ve tried has failed / been rejected by Claude desktop.

ag11 · February 10, 2026, 11:32pm

We are adding support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) in Agenda 22.2.

Wow, this is very cool! Thank you very much!

BruceN · February 11, 2026, 5:07am

There is a reason commercial pilots have to do periodic manual landings vs the auto pilot!

drewmccormack · February 11, 2026, 8:20am

Mac only. We can’t build this in on iOS easily due to restrictions there. I think Apple may add options for this.

drewmccormack · February 11, 2026, 8:27am

The config is available if you go to Agenda > Integrations. Just use the Copy Claude Config option.

They don’t make it particularly easy, but I guess it is a prosumer/pro feature. Here are the instructions:

I think you just make a file with the copied data.

Note that often you can just type into claude itself what you want to do, pasting the config. It can often make the file for you.

konetidy · February 11, 2026, 10:46am

Have you succeeded at that?

Claude desktop says:

Alternately, pasting the command in terminal as Claude suggests, fails.

When the MCP integration is enabled (as it is here) is Agenda actually running a local MCP server?

I think we need instructions that work, please.

drewmccormack · February 11, 2026, 12:55pm

Yes, Agenda is the server.

I’ve been testing it a lot with Claude Code, but that is a command line tool. The command you have there is for Claude Code.

The desktop app should work too, but config is different I think. Here is what Claude itself tells me…

  {                                                                                                                                              
    "mcpServers": {                                                                                                                              
      "agenda": {                                                                                                                                
        "type": "http",                                                                                                                          
        "url": "http://127.0.0.1:16106/mcp"
      }                                                                                                                                          
    }                                                                                                                                            
  }

Add it to Claude for Desktop’s config file at:

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

If the file already has other MCP servers, just add the “agenda” entry to the existing mcpServers object. Then restart Claude for Desktop to pick up the change.

Tobi93 · February 11, 2026, 1:44pm

Hi drew,

I’m feeling a bit stupid, but I just updated to Agenda 22.2 and I don’t see the Agenda > Integrations menu anywhere. Where is it supposed to be?

konetidy · February 11, 2026, 2:08pm

Nope. Adding that code to the json errors out. Claude explained why:

The JSON is valid now — the problem is that Claude Desktop doesn’t recognize "type": "http" as a valid MCP server transport in its config format.

Claude Desktop’s claude_desktop_config.json supports two MCP server types:

stdio — requires "command" and optionally "args" and "env" (like your Readwise entry)

sse — requires "url" pointing to a Server-Sent Events endpoint

Your “agenda” block uses "type": "http" which isn’t a supported transport. Try changing it to:
"agenda": {
  "type": "sse",
  "url": "http://127.0.0.1:16106/mcp"
}
If the agenda server actually speaks raw HTTP (request/response) rather than SSE (streaming), then Claude Desktop may not support it natively yet. In that case you’d need a proxy or adapter that bridges HTTP to stdio or SSE. But try "sse" first — many MCP servers that expose an HTTP endpoint are actually SSE under the hood.

The error is clear: Claude Desktop is looking at mcpServers.agenda.command and finding it undefined. It expects every MCP server entry to have a "command" field (stdio format). It doesn’t support "type": "sse" or "type": "http" at all — at least not in your version.

So Claude Desktop simply doesn’t support URL-based/remote MCP servers in its config. Every server must be a local process it can spawn.

Your options:

Run agenda via a stdio wrapper. If the agenda MCP server has a CLI/npx package, use that instead — same pattern as your Readwise entry.

Use mcp-remote as a bridge, something like:
"agenda": {
  "command": "npx",
  "args": [
    "-y",
    "mcp-remote",
    "http://127.0.0.1:16106/mcp"
  ]
}
This proxies the HTTP endpoint into a stdio process that Claude Desktop can manage. Worth trying first since it requires the least fuss.

Tobi93 · February 11, 2026, 2:10pm

Did you try switching the type of the MCP entry from http to url?

konetidy · February 11, 2026, 2:11pm

Better for most users to have an MCP that works with Claude Desktop (like Readwise, Craft, and several others), than depending on Claude Code which is great for coders and command line enthusiasts, but I image not for the bulk of the population.

I suggest considering Claude’s advice and get some experienced help on coding this piece.

(FWIW, the command Agenda provided works fine in the Claude CLI.)

konetidy · February 11, 2026, 2:29pm

Claude says it won’t accept url as a valid protocol scheme.

drewmccormack · February 11, 2026, 3:44pm

Yeah, I’ll see what I can do. It’s tricky with a sandboxed app. Every other MCP server I’m seen for Mac app has been this HTTP type.

I’ll leave the final word to Claude Desktop itself…

The irony is that the HTTP/SSE approach is actually the right architecture for a sandboxed Mac app. Agenda can spin up a local server on a port, stay within its sandbox, and serve MCP that way. It’s Claude Desktop that’s the bottleneck by not supporting remote transports yet.

Update: I’m looking into an option to provide a plugin that you can add straight to Claude Desktop.

drewmccormack · February 11, 2026, 4:36pm

Here is a Claude Desktop plugin. Enable MCP in Agenda, download this plugin (zip file), and double click it to install.

https://downloads.agenda.com/AgendaPlugin.mcpb

Tobi93 · February 11, 2026, 4:47pm

Hi drew,

thank you for the quick turnaround on that.

I have to come back to may question: I don’t see the integrations option in my Agenda menu:

I’m updated to 22.2, restarted Agenda multiple and also restarted my Mac. Do I have to do something else to be able to see the integrations menu?

daveb08 · February 11, 2026, 4:49pm

Does this process work with ChatGPT?

Roms · February 11, 2026, 9:24pm

This has something to do with the language version.
Agenda > Integration is also missing in my German version.

Just as a note. I don’t want to use it at the moment.