Exponential MCP

Connect Claude to your Exponential workspace. Manage projects, actions, and OKRs directly from Claude.

Quick Start

1. Create an Agent

Open exponential.im/settings/agents/new:

• Name the agent after the app it will run in (for example "Claude")

• Pick the workspaces it may work in

• Click Create agent and copy the key (exp_agent_…) — it is shown once

The agent is its own identity: what Claude does in Exponential is attributed to it, not to you.

2. Set Up the MCP Server

npx exponential-mcp init

Paste the agent key when prompted.

3. Configure for Your Claude Client

For Claude Desktop:

• exponential-mcp init will automatically configure Claude Desktop

• Restart Claude Desktop

For Claude Code (VSCode Extension):

• The server uses .mcp.json in your project directory

• Reload your VSCode window (Cmd+Shift+P → "Developer: Reload Window")

• The server will be available in your current project

4. Ask Claude to manage your tasks!

Related MCP server: Todoist Meeting MCP

One Key per App

init saves one key that every app on the machine shares. To give each app its own identity, create a separate agent per app and set its key in that app's MCP config. EXPONENTIAL_API_KEY overrides the key saved by init.

Claude Code:

claude mcp add exponential -e EXPONENTIAL_API_KEY=<key> -- npx -y exponential-mcp serve

Codex (~/.codex/config.toml):

[mcp_servers.exponential]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "exponential-mcp", "serve"]
env = { EXPONENTIAL_API_KEY = "<key>" }

Claude Desktop or .mcp.json: add "env": { "EXPONENTIAL_API_KEY": "<key>" } to the exponential entry.

Restart the app afterwards. Re-running init rewrites Claude Desktop's entry, including its env.

What Claude Can Do

Once connected, Claude can:

• List projects – "What projects am I working on?"

• View actions – "Show my active tasks"

• Create actions – "Add a task to call John tomorrow"

• Complete actions – "Mark the report task as done"

• View OKRs – "What are my Q1 goals?"

• Search – "Find anything related to Kenya"

• Work the CRM – "Log that I emailed Keily today" / "Move the Onionpress deal to Proposal"

• Run the product backlog – tickets, features, epics, stories, pages and decisions

• Track time – log, confirm and report on the day

Manual Setup

For Claude Desktop

macOS (recommended path): ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Legacy path: ~/.claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add this to the appropriate file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exponential": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/exponential-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

For Claude Code (VSCode Extension)

Create a .mcp.json file in your project directory:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exponential": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "exponential-mcp", "serve"]
    }
  }
}

Then reload your VSCode window.

Note: The key is stored in the Exponential SDK config store (created by npx exponential-mcp init), so you don't need to specify it in the MCP configuration unless the app needs its own key (see One Key per App). A personal JWT token from Settings → API keys also works, but then Claude acts as you. Run exponential-mcp config to see the current storage path and values. Run exponential-mcp doctor to print a recommended MCP config snippet for your machine.

Commands

# Initialize with an agent key
exponential-mcp init

# Show current config
exponential-mcp config

# Diagnose local setup
exponential-mcp doctor

# Start server manually (usually not needed)
exponential-mcp serve

Available Tools

Domain tools

Alongside the tools above, every part of the Exponential SDK is exposed as one tool per domain, so the MCP server can do anything the SDK and CLI can:

actions · projects · workspaces · positions · goals · key_results · meetings · time · decisions · contacts · organizations · deals · products · features · scopes · requirements · areas · stories · epics · tickets · labels · pages · databases · comments

Each takes { operation, params }. The tool description lists every operation with a one-line signature; operation: "describe" returns the full parameter schema for one operation (params: { operation: "create" }) or all of them. Invalid params come back as an error that includes the expected schema.

{ "operation": "add_interaction",
  "params": { "contactId": "…", "type": "EMAIL", "direction": "OUTBOUND", "subject": "Intro" } }

comments covers comments on actions, features, pages, goals and tickets — pass target to choose which.

positions is a workspace's roles & responsibilities — the Positions on the settings page: list, create, update, set_holders, delete, and import_many (upsert by title, with a dry run). Writes need your own API key, not an agent key, and owner/admin, except that a holder may edit their own Position's remit.

databases is the typed write path for tables inside pages (ADR-0078): a database is a block in a page body and each row is a page. Values are typed per property — a select takes an option name, a date an ISO string, a person a user ID — and a wrong value is refused naming the property, so call get first to learn the schema. Reading the page with pages shows the table.

Asking about the day

Use get_todays_actions, not get_actions, for anything about today, priorities, or what the user is behind on. get_actions has no date filtering at all, so it cannot distinguish overdue work from anything else.

When there is a lot of overdue work, follow up with get_overdue_triage before proposing what to do. A large overdue count is usually a few bulk writes — a generated project plan stamped every row with one timestamp — not a large number of missed commitments. Those are cohorts, and the honest disposition is defer_actions (amnesty); reschedule_actions would just re-inflict the same pile tomorrow. Individually-dated loose actions are the ones that deserve a real decision.

Development

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/your-org/exponential-mcp
cd exponential-mcp

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build
npm run build

# Run locally
npm start

License

MIT