anki-mcp-addon

Talk to your Anki collection. Point Claude (or any MCP client) at your flashcards and study, edit, and analyze your deck in plain conversation. No AnkiConnect, no Node.js, no external dependencies. It's a small Python add-on that runs an MCP server inside Anki itself.

Why

Anki is powerful but manual: browsing, tagging, and reviewing all happen through the desktop UI. This add-on turns your collection into something an LLM can actually work with, so you can ask for things instead of clicking through them:

• "Quiz me on today's due cards, one at a time."

• "Turn these notes into 15 flashcards and put them in my Spanish deck."

• "How's my retention been this month? Which decks am I falling behind on?"

• "Find every card tagged hard, move them into a Review deck."

• "I got that one wrong, mark it Again."

Everything runs locally. Your collection never leaves your machine except through whatever MCP client you're already using.

Related MCP server: Anki MCP Server

Prerequisites

• Anki 23.10 or later (Python 3.9+ bundled)

• An MCP-compatible client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Zed, etc.)

Installation

Via AnkiWeb (recommended)

1. Anki → Tools → Add-ons → Get Add-ons

2. Paste this code: 593632040

3. Restart Anki

Add-on page on AnkiWeb

Manual (for development or the latest unreleased code)

1. Find your Anki add-ons directory: Anki → Tools → Add-ons → View Files (opens %APPDATA%\Anki2\addons21\ on Windows)

2. Copy (or symlink) this repo's root folder (the one containing __init__.py and manifest.json) into that add-ons directory

3. Restart Anki

Either way, the MCP server starts automatically when you open a profile. It listens on http://127.0.0.1:8766.

Optional: change port

Tools → Add-ons → anki-mcp → Config opens a settings dialog. Change the port and click "Save and restart"; no need to restart Anki.

Client setup

Claude Code

claude mcp add anki --transport sse http://127.0.0.1:8766/sse

Restart Claude Code. Anki must be open whenever you use it.

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anki": {
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8766/sse"
    }
  }
}

Other MCP-compatible clients

Use SSE transport URL: http://127.0.0.1:8766/sse

Refer to each client's MCP documentation for where to configure SSE servers.

Available tools

Notes

Decks

Study

Insights & sync

Development

pip install pytest
pytest

Tests run without Anki. The aqt and anki modules are mocked via tests/conftest.py.

License

MIT