MCP Server for Microsoft Project

Fork note: this is a patched fork of albertito1998/mcp_ms_project. The original's write path didn't actually work against a real project file — three separate bugs:

• requirements.txt pinned mcp>=1.0.0, which resolves to mcp 2.x today; that release renamed FastMCP to MCPServer and the server failed to import at all. Pinned to mcp<2.

• UniversalProjectReader turns auto-numbering off when it loads an existing file (to preserve the file's own IDs), so every addTask()/addResource() call got a null ID and crashed. _load_project now re-enables auto-numbering after load.

• Once that's fixed, the visible "ID" field (row position) stops being reliable, but every write tool matched tasks/resources against it. All lookups now match on UniqueID instead.

Also added add_dependency and remove_dependency — the original had no way to link (or unlink) tasks with a predecessor/successor relationship, which is the actual point of building a schedule.

One more bug worth knowing about if you're building multi-level task hierarchies (subtasks under a parent task) across separate tool calls, which is how every write tool here actually gets used in practice: MSPDI encodes parent/child structure by task order in the file plus outline level, not an explicit parent reference. addTask() on a project reloaded from disk appends the new child at the end of the task list instead of positioning it after the parent's other descendants — which silently corrupts the hierarchy on the next read (a later sibling can get misread as the summary task instead of the real parent). _save() now calls synchronizeTaskIDToHierarchy() before every write to keep tasks correctly grouped under their parent regardless of how many separate calls built the tree.

Verified end-to-end, including a real multi-level hierarchy built through separate incremental tool calls (the same pattern an LLM client actually uses): build a schedule with these tools → open the .xml in MS Project / Project Plan 365 (which computes the real dates and critical path — mpxj itself doesn't schedule) → read it back with get_critical_path and get correct results.

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that allows Claude and other LLM clients to read and write Microsoft Project files (.mpp) directly, without needing MS Project open.

Built on top of mpxj — a battle-tested Java library with Python bindings that supports .mpp, .mpt, .mpx, .xml, .xer and other project file formats.

Write note: mpxj does not support writing native .mpp binary files. Write operations save to MSPDI XML (.xml) format, which Microsoft Project opens natively. Open the .xml in MS Project and use File → Save As to convert back to .mpp.

Tools

Read

Write

Related MCP server: projectlibre-mcp

Requirements

• Python 3.10+

• Java 11+ (required by mpxj via JPype)

• pip packages: mcp, mpxj, JPype1

Installation

# 1. Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/albertito1998/mcp_ms_project.git
cd mcp_ms_project

# 2. Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

Make sure Java is installed and available in your PATH (java --version).

Usage with Claude Code

claude mcp add msproject -- python /path/to/msproject_server.py

Usage with Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "msproject": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/path/to/msproject_server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
macOS/Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Example prompts

Reading:

• "Summarise the project at C:/Projects/plan.mpp"

• "Which tasks are overdue?"

• "Show me the critical path"

• "Who is assigned to which tasks?"

Writing:

• "Add a task called 'UAT' starting 2025-05-01 for 3 days"

• "Mark task 5 as 75% complete"

• "Add Alice as a resource and assign her to task 3"

• "Delete task 8 from the project"

• "Update the project title to 'Q2 Rollout' and set status date to today"

• "Convert plan.mpp to plan.json"

Supported input formats

Supported output formats

License

MIT