Advanced Trello

Enhanced Model Context Protocol Server for Trello integration with Cursor AI
Production-hardened API layer, batch tools, and attachment downloads

TypeScript Trello API MCP Protocol License

📋 Overview

This is an enhanced version of the Trello MCP Server that provides comprehensive integration between Trello and Cursor AI (and similar MCP clients). It includes ~35 tools across boards, lists, cards, labels, and actions, plus a reliable HTTP layer suited to heavy or sequential API use.

✨ Features

🛡️ Reliability (production-tested)

All Trello calls (MCP resources and tools) go through a shared client in src/utils/api.ts:

• HTTPS keep-alive — reuses TLS connections (helps avoid CloudFront / CDN connection churn on burst traffic)
• **fetchWithRetry** — ~60s timeout, exponential backoff with jitter (up to 7 attempts), retries on network errors and 5xx
• Sliding-window rate limit — ~80 requests / 10s (mutex-protected)
• 429 handling — respects Retry-After when present

🎯 API coverage (current)

Area	Tools	Notes
Lists	10	Full list lifecycle, bulk card moves
Cards	12	Batch create/move/archive/comments, attachments
Labels	8	Including batch add
Actions	4	Get / update / delete action, list reactions
Boards	1	List accessible boards

🔧 Other

• TypeScript + Zod validation on tool inputs
• Batch operations — fewer round-trips for agents (create-cards, move-cards, archive-cards, add-comments, etc.)
• Attachment pipeline — list metadata + optional download to disk (see below)

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• Trello API Key and Token
• Cursor (or any MCP client)

Installation

1. Clone the repository

 git clone https://github.com/adriangrahldev/advanced-trello-mcp-server.git
 cd advanced-trello-mcp-server

2. Install dependencies

 npm install

3. Build the project

 npm run build

4. Configure environment variables

 export TRELLO_API_KEY="your_api_key"
 export TRELLO_API_TOKEN="your_api_token"

5. Configure Cursor MCP Add to your ~/.cursor/mcp.json (paths adjusted for your machine):

🛠️ Available Tools

📋 Lists (10)

• get-lists — Lists on a board
• create-list / update-list / archive-list
• move-list-to-board
• get-list-actions / get-list-board / get-list-cards
• archive-all-cards-in-list / move-all-cards-in-list

🎯 Cards (12)

• create-card — Optional **due** and **start** (ISO 8601)
• create-cards — Batch create; each card may include **due** / **start**
• update-card — Name and/or description
• move-card / move-cards
• add-comment / **add-comments** (batch comments on multiple cards)
• get-tickets-by-list
• archive-card / archive-cards
• **get-card-attachments** — Metadata + commentContext (e.g. screenshots on comments)
• **download-card-attachments** — Downloads files to a folder (numbered files + _manifest.json). File URLs often require OAuth-style Authorization header (not query-string key/token); this tool handles that.

🏷️ Labels (8)

• create-label / create-labels
• add-label / add-labels
• get-label / update-label / delete-label / update-label-field

📊 Actions (4)

• get-action — With optional display/entities/member params
• update-action / delete-action
• get-action-reactions

🏢 Boards (1)

• get-boards

❓ Why is an old Pull Request still “open” on GitHub?

GitHub marks a PR as Merged only when you merge that PR (green “Merge pull request” button), or when the PR branch is merged in a way GitHub links to the PR.

If you cherry-picked, copied files, or merged locally into main and pushed main, the code is on the repo but the PR stays open until you:

1. Close the PR manually — add a comment such as: “Landed on main via commit ** — thanks!”
2. Or use GitHub’s merge flow next time so the PR closes automatically.

Conflicts on fork-based PRs are normal; resolving on your machine and pushing main is fine — just close the PR afterward so contributors know it’s done.

📈 Roadmap

Broader Trello API coverage (checklists, members, webhooks, search, etc.) is planned. PRs welcome.

🔧 Development

Project structure

advanced-trello-mcp-server/
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts
│   ├── tools/       # boards, lists, cards, labels, actions
│   ├── types/
│   └── utils/       # api.ts — fetchWithRetry, keep-alive, rate limit
├── build/
├── scripts/build.js
├── package.json
└── README.md

Building

npm run build    # TypeScript + shebang on build/index.js
npm run compile  # tsc only

Cross-platform build (Windows / macOS / Linux): compiles TS, adds #!/usr/bin/env node, sets execute bit on Unix.

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Branch (git checkout -b feature/...)
3. Commit (Conventional Commits encouraged)
4. Open a Pull Request

If the maintainer merges your work outside the GitHub PR UI, they may close the PR with a link to the landing commit — that does not mean your contribution wasn’t accepted.

📚 API documentation

Tools follow the Trello REST API. Inputs are validated with Zod.

🐛 Troubleshooting

Issue	What to check
Credentials	TRELLO_API_KEY + TRELLO_API_TOKEN; token scopes (read / write)
Tool not found	Rebuild (npm run build), restart MCP client
fetch failed / timeouts	Retry layer should help; sustained 429 → slow down workflows
Attachment download 401	Use download-card-attachments (header auth), not raw URL with ?key=&token=

📄 License

MIT — see LICENSE.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Original Trello MCP Server — yairhaimo/trello-mcp-server
• Trello API · MCP · Cursor

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Built with ❤️ for the Cursor AI community