trello-mcp

A small MCP server for Trello, built around the one thing the popular Trello MCP servers don't do: searching cards by custom field (e.g. find every card where the AI Ready field equals Claude kiosk).

It talks to the Trello REST API directly using your API key + token, returns compact results (no multi-hundred-KB board dumps), and resolves boards/cards by id, 8-char shortLink, URL, or name.

Tools

Related MCP server: Trello MCP Server

Setup

1. Get Trello credentials

Create a Power-Up at https://trello.com/power-ups/admin, grab the API Key from its API Key tab, then generate a Token:

https://trello.com/1/authorize?expiration=never&scope=read,write&response_type=token&name=trello-mcp&key=YOUR_API_KEY

The Power-Up Secret is for OAuth and is NOT used here — only API Key + Token.

2. Register with Claude Code — zero clone, straight from GitHub

claude mcp add trello-cf --scope user \
  -e TRELLO_API_KEY=YOUR_KEY \
  -e TRELLO_TOKEN=YOUR_TOKEN \
  -- npx -y github:AxGrid/trello-mcp

--scope user makes it available in every project. npx installs and runs it on first launch — no git clone, no npm install. Restart Claude Code afterwards.

Or in claude_desktop_config.json / any MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trello-cf": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "github:AxGrid/trello-mcp"],
      "env": { "TRELLO_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY", "TRELLO_TOKEN": "YOUR_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

npx caches the GitHub package per resolved commit. To force a pull of the latest main, clear it once: npx clear-npx-cache (or rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx).

Local / dev install

git clone git@github.com:AxGrid/trello-mcp.git && cd trello-mcp && npm install
# then point the client at: node /abs/path/to/trello-mcp/server.mjs

Example

Find cards on the Stellar Kiosk board where AI Ready = Claude kiosk and let's solve them.

Claude calls find_cards({ board: "Stellar Kiosk", fieldName: "AI Ready", value: "Claude kiosk" }), then get_card(...) on the match.

Task lifecycle via a custom field

A single list-type field (here AI Ready) doubles as a status. Suggested values:

Setting a new state moves the card out of the "queued" search automatically, since the field no longer equals a queued value. createOption:true is only needed the first time a value is introduced.

Self-test

Runs the core logic against your real account (read-only):

TRELLO_API_KEY=... TRELLO_TOKEN=... TEST_BOARD="Your Board" node selftest.mjs

Requirements

Node 18+ (uses the built-in global fetch). The only runtime dependency is @modelcontextprotocol/sdk.