exchange-ai-connector

An MCP server that lets an AI agent read and act on your Microsoft 365 / Outlook email and calendar, with every state-changing action (sending mail, creating an event) gated by your MCP client's confirmation prompt.

Tools

How the human-in-the-loop gate works

The read-only tools run freely. The two gated tools (send_email, create_event) are the only ones that change the outside world; they are annotated as destructive, so your MCP client (e.g. Claude Desktop) shows you the exact arguments — recipients, subject, body / event details — and waits for your approval before running. The draft you review is the agent's proposed arguments; nothing is stored half-sent. Reject and it vanishes.

Account-type support

¹ Graph's getSchedule (free/busy) is not available on personal Microsoft accounts. check_availability returns a readable error there; every other tool works.

Setup

1. Register an app in Microsoft Entra ID

1. Go to https://entra.microsoft.com → Identity → Applications → App registrations → New registration.
2. Name: anything (e.g. exchange-ai-connector).
3. Supported account types: Accounts in any organizational directory (multitenant) and personal Microsoft accounts.
4. Redirect URI: platform Public client/native (mobile & desktop), value http://localhost:8400.
5. Click Register, then copy the Application (client) ID from the overview page — you'll need it below.

2. Add Microsoft Graph permissions

1. In your app → API permissions → Add a permission → Microsoft Graph → Delegated permissions.
2. Add: Mail.Read, Mail.Send, Calendars.ReadWrite.
3. Personal account: nothing more — you consent in the browser on first run. Work/school account: a tenant admin may need to click Grant admin consent.

Adding Calendars.ReadWrite later (e.g. after using email-only) triggers a one-time browser re-consent on the next run. See Re-consent below.

3. Install

Pick one:

uvx (recommended — no clone, no venv). Requires uv. Nothing to install ahead of time — uvx fetches and runs the command in a throwaway environment. It's used directly in the Claude Desktop config below, so you can skip straight to that section.

pipx — puts the exchange-ai-connector command on your PATH globally:

pipx install exchange-ai-connector                                  # once on PyPI
# or straight from source today:
pipx install git+https://github.com/wteja/exchange-ai-connector

From source (for development):

git clone https://github.com/wteja/exchange-ai-connector
cd exchange-ai-connector
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
which exchange-ai-connector   # note this path for the Claude Desktop config

4. Configure environment

export EXCHANGE_AI_CLIENT_ID="<your-app-client-id>"

# optional — pin to one tenant instead of the multi-tenant default:
# export EXCHANGE_AI_AUTHORITY="https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenant-id>"

# optional — override the auto-detected timezone (default: /etc/localtime, else UTC):
# export EXCHANGE_AI_TIMEZONE="Asia/Bangkok"

EXCHANGE_AI_CLIENT_ID is required; the other two are optional.

Claude Desktop setup

Edit (on macOS) ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json and add an exchange-ai server under mcpServers. The uvx form is the most reliable — no clone, no venv, no PATH issues:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exchange-ai": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["exchange-ai-connector"],
      "env": {
        "EXCHANGE_AI_CLIENT_ID": "<your-app-client-id>",
        "EXCHANGE_AI_TIMEZONE": "Asia/Bangkok"
      }
    }
  }
}

Before it's published to PyPI, run from GitHub by swapping the args:

"args": ["--from", "git+https://github.com/wteja/exchange-ai-connector", "exchange-ai-connector"]

If you installed from source into a venv instead, use the absolute path to the binary — Claude Desktop is a GUI app and does not inherit your shell's PATH, so a bare "exchange-ai-connector" won't launch:

"command": "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/.venv/bin/exchange-ai-connector"

Claude Code (.mcp.json)

For Claude Code, put the same server under mcpServers in a .mcp.json at your project root (Claude Code expands ${VAR} from your environment):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exchange-ai": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["exchange-ai-connector"],
      "env": { "EXCHANGE_AI_CLIENT_ID": "${EXCHANGE_AI_CLIENT_ID}" }
    }
  }
}

Then fully quit Claude Desktop (Cmd+Q) and reopen it. The exchange-ai server and its tools should appear in the tools/connector list.

On the first tool call a browser opens for sign-in and consent; the token is cached in your OS keychain and refreshed silently afterward.

Suggested approvals: allow the read-only tools (list_emails, read_email, read_thread, list_events, read_event, check_availability) to run without asking, but leave send_email and create_event on ask every time — that's the human-in-the-loop gate doing its job.

Run standalone (without a client)

exchange-ai-connector

It's a stdio MCP server, so it waits silently for a client to connect — there's no interactive output. This is mainly useful for confirming it starts.

Example usage (sample prompts)

Once it's wired into Claude Desktop, drive it in plain language. Examples:

Reading email

• "List my latest 10 emails."
• "Show me unread emails from this week."
• "Read the full email from Alice about the invoice."
• "Show me the whole thread for that conversation."

Sending email (gated — you'll approve the draft)

• "Reply to Alice's email saying I'll have the report by Friday."
• "Send an email to bob@example.com, subject 'Lunch?', asking if he's free Thursday."
• "Forward the invoice email to accounting@example.com with a short note."

Reading the calendar

• "What's on my calendar this week?"
• "Read the details of my 2pm meeting tomorrow."
• "Am I free tomorrow 2–3pm?" (work/school accounts only)
• "When are alice@contoso.com and I both free Thursday afternoon?" (work/school only)

Creating events (gated — you'll approve the details)

• "Create a 30-minute event tomorrow at 2pm titled 'Project sync'."
• "Schedule a 1-hour meeting Friday 10am called 'Design review', invite alice@contoso.com and bob@contoso.com."
• "Block 9–11am Monday for focus time."

For the gated actions, Claude Desktop shows the exact send_email(...) / create_event(...) arguments and waits for your Approve / Deny. Want a change? Tell the agent ("make it 45 minutes", "cc my manager") and it re-proposes.

Audit log

Every gated action appends one JSON line to ~/.exchange-ai-connector/audit.log:

• Sends: {ts, to, subject[, reply_to_id]}
• Events: {ts, kind:"event", subject, start[, attendees]}

Append-only JSONL, grep-able:

grep '"kind": "event"' ~/.exchange-ai-connector/audit.log

Re-consent / token cache

The OAuth token is cached in your OS keychain (service exchange-ai-connector, account msal-token-cache) and refreshed silently. The cached token only carries the scopes you consented to. If you add a scope (e.g. enabling calendar after email-only), clear the cache so the next run re-prompts the browser with the new scopes:

python -c "import keyring; keyring.delete_password('exchange-ai-connector','msal-token-cache')"

("Not found" just means there was no cache to clear.) Then restart your client.

Scope

• v1: email — list/read/thread + gated send.
• v2 (this release): calendar — list/read events, free/busy availability, and gated create_event.

A standalone web approval UI, app-only auth, and multi-account approval remain deliberately out of scope; see the design specs under docs/superpowers/specs/.