pymnifocus

A Python toolkit for OmniFocus on macOS: an MCP server for AI assistant integration (Cursor, Claude, Gemini) and a standalone CLI query tool.

Inspired by themotionmachine/OmniFocus-MCP, rebuilt in Python with security hardening, a CLI, and PyPI packaging.

Prerequisites

• macOS with OmniFocus installed and running
• Python 3.10+
• uv (recommended) or pip

Installation

# From PyPI
pip install pymnifocus

# Or with uv
uv pip install pymnifocus

# For development
git clone https://github.com/vdanen/pymnifocus.git
cd pymnifocus
uv sync

CLI Query Tool

Query OmniFocus directly from your terminal with pymnifocus-query:

# Shorthand flags
pymnifocus-query --overdue
pymnifocus-query --flagged --sort dueDate
pymnifocus-query --inbox
pymnifocus-query --due-within 7 --limit 10
pymnifocus-query --project "Weekly Review"
pymnifocus-query --tag work --tag urgent
pymnifocus-query --available --summary
pymnifocus-query --today

# JSON input (same format as MCP query_omnifocus tool)
pymnifocus-query '{"entity": "tasks", "filters": {"status": ["Overdue", "DueSoon"]}, "sortBy": "dueDate"}'

# Pipe from stdin
echo '{"entity": "projects", "filters": {"status": ["Active"]}}' | pymnifocus-query

# Other tools
pymnifocus-query --tags
pymnifocus-query --perspectives
pymnifocus-query --dump

# Raw JSON output (for scripting)
pymnifocus-query --overdue --json

Run pymnifocus-query --help for full usage.

MCP Server

The MCP server enables AI assistants to interact with OmniFocus through natural language.

Running the Server

# Stdio transport (default, for Cursor/Claude/Gemini)
pymnifocus-server

# Streamable HTTP transport (for web clients or container access)
pymnifocus-server --transport streamable-http
pymnifocus-server --transport streamable-http --port 9000

# Or via module
python -m pymnifocus

Run pymnifocus-server --help for all options.

Cursor Integration

Edit ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "omnifocus": {
      "command": "pymnifocus-server"
    }
  }
}

Or if using uv from a local clone:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "omnifocus": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--project",
        "/path/to/pymnifocus",
        "python",
        "-m",
        "pymnifocus.server"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Restart Cursor or reload MCP servers (Cmd+Shift+P -> "MCP: Restart Servers").

Claude Code Integration

Same as above, just edit ~/.claude.json.

Claude Desktop Integration

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "omnifocus": {
      "command": "pymnifocus-server"
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop.

Google AI Studio / Gemini

For MCP-compatible Gemini clients, the server uses stdio transport by default:

• Command: pymnifocus-server

For Streamable HTTP (web-based clients):

pymnifocus-server --transport streamable-http

Then connect to http://localhost:8000/mcp.

Container Access

Since OmniFocus is a macOS application, the MCP server must run on the macOS host. Containers can reach it over HTTP using host.docker.internal.

1. Start the server on the host:

pymnifocus-server --transport streamable-http

This binds to 127.0.0.1:8000 by default. OmniFocus must be running.

2. Configure the MCP client inside the container:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "omnifocus": {
      "url": "http://host.docker.internal:8000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

3. Sample Containerfile:

FROM python:3.13-slim

RUN pip install --no-cache-dir mcp-client-cli

# Configure MCP to reach the host's pymnifocus server
RUN mkdir -p /root/.config
COPY <<'EOF' /root/.config/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "omnifocus": {
      "url": "http://host.docker.internal:8000/mcp"
    }
  }
}
EOF

CMD ["bash"]

Build and run (Docker or Podman):

docker build -t my-mcp-app .
docker run --rm -it my-mcp-app

Note: host.docker.internal resolves to the host machine on Docker Desktop for Mac and Podman Machine. On Linux with native Docker, add --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway to the docker run command.

Available MCP Tools

MCP Resources

Example Prompts

• "Show me all flagged tasks due this week"
• "Add a task 'Review quarterly report' to my Work project, due Friday"
• "What's in my inbox?"
• "List all my projects"
• "Create a project called 'Website Redesign' with 3 tasks"

How It Works

The server communicates with OmniFocus using:

• OmniJS scripts executed via JXA (osascript -l JavaScript) for queries, dumps, perspectives, and tags
• AppleScript for add/edit/remove operations

OmniFocus must be running for either the MCP server or the CLI tool to function.

Security

• All user input is validated and escaped before embedding in generated scripts
• Entity names, sort fields, and field names are whitelisted
• Numeric parameters are validated as integers
• AppleScript strings are sanitized against injection (quotes, backslashes, newlines)
• Script paths are constrained to prevent directory traversal
• Batch operations are capped at 100 items
• Query results are capped at 5000 items
• Stdio transport: all communication is local (no network traffic)
• HTTP transport: binds to localhost by default; use --host to override

License

MIT

Credits

Inspired by themotionmachine/OmniFocus-MCP. OmniJS scripts are adapted from that project.