mlo-mcp

MCP server for the MyLifeOrganized (MLO) Windows desktop app. AI agents (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Claude Desktop — anything that speaks MCP over stdio) manage your MLO task tree by driving mlo.exe's undocumented command line locally. No cloud API, no account, your data never leaves the machine.

• 12 tools: list/search/get tasks, contexts, single/atomic-outline add, update/complete/uncomplete/delete, QuickSync, cloud status
• Writes never touch your data file: the server runs a local cloud-sync endpoint, queues changes as sync deltas, and MLO's own merge logic applies them via QuickSync — the app keeps running, and the append-only delta log is the durable record of every change (see docs/mcp-cloud.md, including the one-time proxy wiring that routes the app's sync to the local endpoint)
• Ships four customizable GTD skills (/mind, /inbox, /weekly + standing conventions) for any SKILL.md-capable agent

Requirements

• Windows with MyLifeOrganized desktop installed
• Node 22+ (that's all — the repo ships a self-contained bundle; no package manager needed)

Install

The only required setting is MLO_DATA_FILE — the path to your .ml profile. Try it against a copy of your profile first if you're cautious; writes are applied by MLO's own sync merge, and every change is kept as a delta in the local message log.

Any MCP client (via npx, straight from GitHub — no npm registry)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mlo": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "github:govza/mlo-mcp"],
      "env": { "MLO_DATA_FILE": "C:\\path\\to\\your.ml" }
    }
  }
}

npx caches the GitHub install; pin a tag (github:govza/mlo-mcp#v0.2.0) for reproducibility, and re-run with a newer tag to update.

Claude Code

Either register directly:

claude mcp add mlo -e MLO_DATA_FILE=C:\path\to\your.ml -- npx -y github:govza/mlo-mcp

or install as a plugin (also ships the GTD skills; updates via /plugin update):

/plugin marketplace add govza/mlo-mcp
/plugin install mlo@govza

The plugin reads MLO_DATA_FILE from your environment — set it once, user-level:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("MLO_DATA_FILE", "C:\path\to\your.ml", "User")

Skills (any agent)

The GTD skills install with the open agent-skills CLI — one command covers Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and the rest of the SKILL.md ecosystem:

npx skills add govza/mlo-mcp    # update: npx skills update · remove: npx skills remove

Claude Code users who install the plugin above get the skills bundled with it instead. See skills/ for what they do and how to customize them.

From a clone (no npx)

git clone https://github.com/govza/mlo-mcp
claude mcp add mlo -e MLO_DATA_FILE=C:\path\to\your.ml -- node C:\path\to\mlo-mcp\mcp-server\dist-bundle\mlo-mcp.js

Configuration

MLO_DATA_FILE is required; optional vars (MLO_EXE_PATH, MLO_CLOUD_PORT, MLO_CLOUD_STATE_DIR, …) are documented in mcp-server/README.md.

Documentation

mcp-server/	Tools reference, configuration, development, tests
docs/	The reverse-engineered mlo.exe CLI, XML & .ml binary formats, server architecture, MLO task model
skills/	Customizable GTD skills (Claude Code, Codex, any SKILL.md-capable agent)

Everything in docs/ was verified empirically against MLO 15.x on Windows — MLO's CLI is largely undocumented, so the quirk catalog there is the map of what actually works.

License

MIT