Workflowy MCP Server & CLI

A feature-rich Model Context Protocol (MCP) server and Command Line Interface (CLI) for Workflowy written in Go. Connect your AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) to your Workflowy data or run commands from a terminal emulator or script, including search, bulk replace, usage reports, and offline access capabilities.

Why This Workflowy MCP Server?

• Full-text search with regex
• Bulk search & replace
• Content transformation (split, clean, pipe to LLMs)
• Usage reports (stale nodes, size analysis, mirrors)
• Sandboxed AI access with --write-root-id
• Offline mode via backup files
• CLI + MCP server in one tool
• Caching for performance
• Homebrew installation
• Basic CRUD operations
• Using short IDs (Copy Internal Link)

Quick Start

Install via Homebrew

brew install mholzen/workflowy/workflowy-cli

Configure Your API Key

mkdir -p ~/.workflowy
echo "your-api-key-here" > ~/.workflowy/api.key

Get your API key at https://workflowy.com/api-key/

Run Your First Command

# Get the top-level nodes, and nodes two levels deep
workflowy get

# Generate a report showing where most of your nodes are
workflowy report count | pbcopy   # paste directly into Workflowy!

Use pbcopy on macOS, clip on Windows, wl-copy on Linux, or xclip for X11 systems.

Use with Claude Desktop or Claude Code

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport=stdio workflowy -- workflowy mcp --expose=all

Remove —expose=all to limit to read-only tools.

Claude Desktop

Add to your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "workflowy": {
      "command": "workflowy",
      "args": ["mcp", "--expose=all"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop and start asking Claude to work with your Workflowy!

MCP Tools for AI Assistants

Read Tools (Safe)

Tool	Description
workflowy_get	Get a node and its descendants as a tree
workflowy_list	List descendants as a flat list
workflowy_search	Search nodes by text or regex
workflowy_targets	List shortcuts and system targets (inbox, etc.)
workflowy_id	Resolve short ID or target key to full UUID
workflowy_report_count	Find where most of your content lives
workflowy_report_children	Find nodes with many children
workflowy_report_created	Find oldest nodes
workflowy_report_modified	Find stale, unmodified nodes
workflowy_report_mirrors	Find most mirrored nodes (requires backup)

Write Tools

Tool	Description
workflowy_create	Create new nodes
workflowy_update	Update node content
workflowy_move	Move node to a new parent
workflowy_delete	Delete nodes
workflowy_complete	Mark nodes complete
workflowy_uncomplete	Mark nodes incomplete
workflowy_replace	Bulk find-and-replace with regex
workflowy_transform	Transform node content (split, trim, shell commands)

CLI Features

Search Your Entire Outline

# Find all TODOs (case-insensitive)
workflowy search -i "foobar"

# Regex search for dates
workflowy search -E "<time.*>"

# Search with

... [View full README on GitHub](https://github.com/mholzen/workflowy#readme)