Connect to Claude (MCP)

Cuaderno ships an MCP server, cdno-mcp, that exposes your vault to AI clients — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Kiro, Gemini CLI, and anything else that speaks MCP. The assistant can then read context (your orientation, a project, a portfolio) and make writes (append to the log, file evidence, complete an action) on your behalf.

It’s the same engine as the CLI — the files on disk stay the source of truth.

Register the server

Add cdno-mcp to your client’s MCP configuration. For Claude Desktop, edit ~/.claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Claude Code: ~/.claude.json or per-project .mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cuaderno": {
      "command": "cdno-mcp",
      "env": { "CUADERNO_VAULT_PATH": "/Users/you/notebook" }
    }
  }
}

• command must resolve on the client’s PATH. If it doesn’t, use the absolute path (e.g. /opt/homebrew/bin/cdno-mcp, or target/release/cdno-mcp for a source build).
• CUADERNO_VAULT_PATH tells the server which vault to open. You can omit it; the server then opens whichever vault its working directory belongs to (the same discovery rule as the CLI).

Restart the client. Cuaderno’s tools then appear in the client’s tool list.

What the assistant can do

The server advertises 46 tools, grouped by purpose:

• Context-gathering reads — get_orientation, get_project_context, get_portfolio_contents, get_weekly_context, search_notes, read_daily_note, and more.
• Writes — append_to_log, file_to_portfolio, update_project_state, add_action, complete_action, create_commitment, create_tracking_entry, the daily/weekly section writers, and others.
• Creation and lifecycle — create_project, create_portfolio, create_question, create_stewardship, park_project, activate_project, set_question_status, and so on.

The full catalogue, with each tool’s inputs and output shape, is in the MCP server reference.

Skills

You can wrap common multi-step flows as Claude skills that call these tools — e.g. a daily orientation that reads get_orientation and writes your intention with upsert_daily_section. The repo ships worked examples under examples/skills/; see Using with Claude skills.

Next step

Learn the model behind it all: The Research Logbook Method.