intents-mcp — Claude Code MCP server: macOS app actions as tools
Turns the App Intents your Mac already declares into MCP tools for an agent, using Shortcuts and public APIs only.
Open on GitHubWhat intents-mcp does
Every app on macOS describes its Siri and Shortcuts actions in App Intents metadata. intents-mcp reads those files and tells you what is available: intents-mcp census counts the declared actions, intents-mcp list --tier simple narrows them to the ones that run in the background, take plain text, numbers, dates or choices, and return output. Whatever you pick gets wrapped in a signed Shortcut and served to the MCP client over stdio.
Install with brew install VladUZH/tap/intents-mcp. The build is prebuilt for Apple silicon; on Intel you compile from source and need Xcode. macOS 26 or later is required, along with the shortcuts command that ships with the system. On macOS 27 you want a current Homebrew, otherwise it falls back to a source build and asks for Xcode 27.
Setup is manual by design. enable opens each wrapper in Shortcuts and you click Add Shortcut once — there is no public way to add one without that click. The first run may trigger a permission prompt; pick Always Allow. It tends to reappear whenever data goes into another app, and it can come back after a wrapper upgrade, since an upgraded wrapper counts as a new shortcut. Reminders and Calendar read their result back through a shared helper, which needs its own Add Shortcut click; skip it and those tools still work but report "not verified". Nothing reaches the agent until you enable it, and actions whose names suggest deleting, sending, buying or sharing stay behind --allow-risky.
What it helps with
- add a reminder to Reminders from inside an agent session
- create a Calendar event with a specific start time
- see which app actions this Mac actually declares
- enable one app action and disable the rest
- confirm an item was really created instead of trusting a success flag
Example prompts for the agent
- Create a calendar event for Thursday at 15:00 about the release.
- Show me which tools are currently enabled.
How to install intents-mcp
Install
The MCP registry has no launch command for it: see the repository README
Step by step, with commands for each platform: How to add an MCP server to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI and more
Questions about intents-mcp
How do I install intents-mcp in Claude Code?
Run brew install VladUZH/tap/intents-mcp, then intents-mcp census, intents-mcp list --tier simple and intents-mcp enable reminders.add calendar.create-event. Register the server with claude mcp add --scope user mac -- intents-mcp serve.
What does intents-mcp do?
It reads App Intents metadata on your Mac, wraps the actions you choose in signed Shortcuts, and exposes them to an agent as MCP tools over stdio. Public APIs only.
Why does a tool report "not verified"?
Reminders and Calendar results are read back by a separate helper, and that helper needs its own Add Shortcut click. Without it the tool runs, but nothing confirms the change.
