anki-mcp

Study and manage your Anki collection by talking to Claude (or any MCP client). 35 tools over AnkiConnect: get quizzed in chat, see what is due and how your retention is going, find the cards you keep forgetting, create and clean up notes in bulk, and pause whole groups of cards until you want them back.

What you can ask

• "What do I have to study today?" → due counts per deck, streak, reviews this week.
• "Quiz me on 10 due cards from my Spanish deck." → one question at a time, graded, and recorded in Anki with the next interval.
• "Which cards do I keep getting wrong? Help me fix them." → leeches, their review history, and rewrites you approve.
• "Suspend everything tagged HSK5 until my exam, and make it easy to bring back." → named pause that restores exactly those cards, scheduling intact.
• "Turn this article into cloze cards in my Biology deck." → duplicate-checked bulk add.
• "Add audio to every card in this deck that doesn't have it." → Azure TTS in bulk.
• "Move the cards tagged grammar to a new subdeck" / "rename the tag todo to review" / "spread my backlog over the next two weeks".

Bulk changes can be previewed with a dry run, deleting always needs a confirmation step, and when Anki is closed the assistant is told to ask you to open it instead of failing silently.

Install

You need Node.js 18+, Anki running, and the AnkiConnect add-on (code 2055492159).

Claude Desktop

Download anki-mcp.mcpb from the latest release and drag it into Settings → Extensions. That's it.

Claude Code

claude mcp add anki --scope user -- npx -y github:nietus/anki-mcp

Cursor and other MCP clients

Add this to the client's MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anki": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "github:nietus/anki-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

On Windows, if the client cannot start npx directly, use "command": "cmd" with "args": ["/c", "npx", "-y", "github:nietus/anki-mcp"].

From source

git clone https://github.com/nietus/anki-mcp
cd anki-mcp
npm install
npm run build

Then point your client at node /path/to/anki-mcp/build/client.js. To build the Claude Desktop bundle yourself, run npm run pack:mcpb (output in dist/anki-mcp.mcpb).

Configuration

All environment variables are optional. Put them in a .env file in the project folder or pass them through your MCP client.

Variable	Default	Purpose
AZURE_API_KEY	–	Enables the audio tools (Azure Text-to-Speech).
AZURE_REGION	eastus	Azure Speech region.
ANKI_CONNECT_HOST	http://127.0.0.1	AnkiConnect host.
ANKI_CONNECT_PORT	8765	AnkiConnect port.
ANKI_CONNECT_KEY	–	AnkiConnect API key, if you set one in the add-on config.

Development

npm test           # unit + in-memory MCP server tests (no Anki needed)
npm run inspector  # try the tools interactively

Available Tools

Every tool is annotated as read-only, write or destructive, so clients like Claude Desktop can auto-approve reads and ask before destructive changes. Errors (including "Anki is not running") come back as readable tool results.

Most bulk tools select cards or notes the same way: deckName (subdecks included), tags (matches any), query (any Anki search, ANDed), or explicit cardIds / noteIds. Write tools accept dryRun: true to preview the change first.

Studying

Tool	What it does
get_study_overview	Today's new/learning/review counts per deck, cards reviewed today, streak, 7/30-day totals.
get_due_cards / get_new_cards	num cards to study (optionally from one deckName), with the interval each button would give.
answer_cards	Record answers (cardId, ease 1-4) and get each card's new interval. (Previously update_cards.)
find_leeches	Weakest cards (leech tag / many lapses), ranked by lapses and ease.
get_card_history	Full review log of up to 20 cards.
get_retention_stats	True retention (young/mature), reviews per day and time spent for a deck over N days.
undo	Undo the last action in Anki.

Selecting and scheduling cards

Tool	What it does
find_cards	Paginated search (query, limit, offset); pick the sections to return with include: question, answer, fields, stats.
suspend_cards / unsuspend_cards	Deactivate/reactivate cards, e.g. all cards with tag X in deck Y. Scheduling is preserved. Pass a label when suspending (notes get the tag paused::<label>) and unsuspend_cards { label } later resumes exactly that group, leaving cards suspended for other reasons alone.
move_cards	Move cards to targetDeck (created if missing).
reschedule_cards	set_due_date (days: 0, 1!, 3-7), forget (reset to new) or relearn.

Creating and editing notes

Tool	What it does
add_card	Create one note.
add_bulk	Create many notes; duplicates/invalid notes are skipped and reported with the reason.
add_cloze_cards	Create cloze notes from text plus terms to hide, or text with {{c1::...}} markup.
update_note_fields / bulk_update_notes	Edit fields of existing notes.
find_and_replace	Plain or regex replace across notes, optionally limited to some fields.
manage_tags	list (with a filter: tag counts), add, remove, rename, clear_unused.
add_image	Add an image to a field from a url, local path or base64 data.
delete_notes	Two-step delete: the first call previews and returns a confirmToken, the second call (with the token) deletes.

Audio (requires AZURE_API_KEY)

Tool	What it does
add_card_with_audio	Create a note with audio generated from sourceField into audioField.
update_card_with_audio	Generate audio for one existing note.
bulk_generate_audio	Generate audio for many notes (by default only those with an empty audio field), limit per call.

Supported languages: en, es, fr, de, it, ja, ko, pt, pt-PT, ru, zh, ar, nl, hi, tr, pl, sv, fi, da, no, cs, hu, el, he, th, vi, id, ms, ro.

Decks and note types

Tool	What it does
get_deck_names / create_deck	List or create decks.
get_deck_model_info	Which note types a deck uses (call before adding cards to it).
get_model_names / get_model_details	List note types / fields, templates and CSS of one.
edit_note_type_field	add, remove, rename or reposition a field.
update_note_type_templates / update_note_type_styling	Replace templates or CSS.
create_model	Create a note type.
sync	Sync with AnkiWeb.

Prompts

Prompt	What it does
quiz_me	Study session: one question at a time, graded and recorded in Anki.
make_cards	Turn a text into atomic flashcards (previewed before adding).
leech_review	Find the cards you keep forgetting and fix them.

Resources

• anki://collection/overview – study overview.
• anki://search/isdue, anki://search/isnew, anki://search/deckcurrent – up to 50 cards each.
• anki://deck/{deckName}/overview – due counts for one deck.
• anki://model/{modelName} – fields, templates and CSS of a note type.

License

MIT