Drafts MCP Server

MCP server for Drafts app integration, enabling Claude to interact with your Drafts notes via the Model Context Protocol.

Features

• Create drafts - Create new drafts with content, tags, and optional actions
• Get draft - Retrieve specific draft by UUID
• Get all drafts - List all drafts with metadata (reads from local SQLite database)
• Search drafts - Full-text search in local database
• Append/Prepend - Add text to existing drafts
• Open draft - Open draft in Drafts app
• Run actions - Execute Drafts actions on text
• Search UI - Open Drafts search interface with filters

Requirements

• macOS (required for URL scheme integration)
• Drafts app installed
• Node.js 22+ (managed via mise)
• mise for dependency management

Installation

1. Install dependencies

# Install mise if not already installed
curl https://mise.run | sh

# Install Node.js via mise
mise install

# Install npm packages
npm install

2. Build the project

npm run build

3. Configure Claude Desktop

Add to ~/.config/claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "drafts": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/sideprojects/drafts-mcp/build/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Replace /Users/YOUR_USERNAME/sideprojects/drafts-mcp with your actual project path.

4. Restart Claude Desktop

Usage

Once configured, Claude can use the following tools:

create_draft

Create a new draft:

{
  text: "Draft content",
  tags?: ["tag1", "tag2"],
  action?: "Action Name",
  folder?: "inbox" | "archive"
}

get_draft

Retrieve a draft by UUID:

{
  uuid: "draft-uuid-here"
}

get_all_drafts

Get list of all drafts with metadata by reading from local database:

{
  folder?: "inbox" | "archive" | "trash" | "all",
  flagged?: boolean
}

Returns array of drafts with uuid, title, tags, timestamps, flags.

search_drafts_db

Search drafts by text content in local database:

{
  query: "search text"
}

Returns array of matching drafts.

append_to_draft

Append text to existing draft:

{
  uuid: "draft-uuid-here",
  text: "Text to append"
}

prepend_to_draft

Prepend text to existing draft:

{
  uuid: "draft-uuid-here",
  text: "Text to prepend"
}

open_draft

Open draft in Drafts app:

{
  uuid?: "draft-uuid-here",
  title?: "Draft Title"
}

run_action

Execute a Drafts action:

{
  action: "Action Name",
  text: "Text to process"
}

search_drafts

Open Drafts search UI:

{
  query?: "search query",
  tag?: "tag-name",
  folder?: "inbox" | "archive" | "flagged" | "trash" | "all"
}

Resources

The server exposes draft content via resources:

• draft://uuid/{uuid} - Retrieve specific draft content

Development

Build

npm run build

Watch mode

npm run watch

Test

npm test
npm run test:watch

Lint

npm run lint
npm run lint:fix

Format

npm run format
npm run format:check

Architecture

• Callback Server - Express server on random port handling x-callback-url responses
• Drafts Client - URL scheme wrapper with retry logic
• Drafts Database - Direct SQLite access to Drafts database for querying
• MCP Server - stdio transport, exposes tools and resources
• Retry Logic - 3 attempts with exponential backoff

Limitations

• macOS only - Uses open command for URL schemes and local database access
• Drafts app required - Must be running for write operations (create, append, prepend)
• Read-only queries - Database queries are read-only; modifications use URL schemes
• UI for search - search_drafts URL scheme opens UI (use search_drafts_db for programmatic search)

Troubleshooting

"Failed to query Drafts database"

• Ensure Drafts app is installed
• Check database path: ~/Library/Group Containers/GTFQ98J4YG.com.agiletortoise.Drafts/DraftStore.sqlite
• Verify you have read permissions to the Group Container

"Request timed out"

• Ensure Drafts app is running
• Check Drafts has permission to receive URL schemes
• Verify callback server can bind to localhost

"Connection failed"

• Restart Claude Desktop
• Check MCP server config path is correct
• Verify Node.js version with mise current

License

MIT