Manage your to-do list from Claude

Claude is good at the thinking part of a to-do list. Give it a messy paragraph about your week and it will pull out the real tasks, notice that two of them are the same thing, and ask what "sort out the car" actually means. What it lacks is a place to put the result. The list it makes lives in the conversation, and the next conversation starts from nothing.

Connect Claude to AI TODO List and the list has a home. Claude writes tasks onto a board with To do, In progress and Done, reads the same board before it answers, and ticks things off when you tell it they are finished. This article is the setup, a small trick with Claude projects that makes it much better, the prompts that work, and the parts that are still yours to do.

Step 1: add the connector

AI TODO List works as a custom connector on every Claude plan (the Free plan allows one). It is not in Claude's connector directory, so you add it by address. In Claude on the web or in the desktop app, open Settings, then Connectors, and click Add custom connector. Name it AI TODO List and paste this address into the Remote MCP server URL field:

https://api.minosin.com/api/aitodolist/v1/mcp

Click Add. Claude opens a sign-in page: enter your email, type the code we send you, and click Allow. No password or API key changes hands. Using the board from Claude needs an AI TODO List subscription; the yearly plan starts with a free month, so there is time to decide.

Step 2: make a Claude project for your list

This is the step that makes the difference. Claude projects carry instructions into every chat inside them, so you explain how you want your list handled once instead of every time. Create a project called "To-do" and paste something like this into its instructions:

My to-do list is in AI TODO List. When I mention something I need to do, add it as a task right away; do not ask unless the title is unclear. Keep titles short and start with a verb. When I say I finished or did something that is already on the board, complete that task instead of adding a new one. Read the board before answering any question about my tasks; never answer from memory. Suggest, then wait for my yes before moving or archiving anything.

Now every chat in that project behaves like a to-do assistant. Outside the project, Claude still has the connector, it just needs a nudge: name AI TODO List the first time.

Step 3: capture, ask, finish

Capturing is a sentence: "add buy milk and call the dentist for tomorrow" becomes two tasks, the second with a due date. Pasting is better still. Drop in the notes from a meeting and say "add a task for each thing I promised", and Claude extracts them, asks about the vague ones, and puts the rest on the board.

Asking is where the connection earns its keep. "What is due today?" and "what is overdue?" come back from the real list. "Plan my day" reads what is overdue, due today and in To do, proposes a top three with a reason for each, and waits for your answer before moving anything.

Finishing is a past-tense sentence. "I sent the invoice" ticks that task off. "I started the slides" moves it to In progress. On Friday, "tidy my board" finds tasks that have sat for a month, completed tasks still on the board, and duplicates, and proposes what to archive. It waits for your yes on that too.

Where Claude is better than a to-do app, and where it is not

Claude is better at the front end: turning a vague worry into a clear task, spotting that "email Sam" and "follow up with Sam about the quote" are the same thing, and pushing back when a task is not really a task. Use it for that. Describe your week and let it propose the list.

It is not a replacement for looking at the board. Claude only acts when you talk to it, so nothing happens between chats. It cannot delete a task, by design, only archive one. And on a phone, where you are most likely to remember the milk, the fastest way to add a task is still the quick-add box in the app, which takes one tap and no conversation.

A week with it

Monday morning in the To-do project: "here is what is on my mind this week", followed by a brain dump. Claude turns it into tasks and asks about two of them. Each morning, "plan my day". During the day, add things as they come up, in whatever chat you happen to be in. When something gets done, say so. Friday, "tidy my board", say yes to most of it, and the board is small again.

The board does not get clever on you. Three lists, tasks with tags and dates, a history on each one. Claude does the typing and the sorting; you do the deciding.

If you want the list without the copy and paste

You can run a to-do list in Claude for a long time with a pinned chat and some discipline. I built AI TODO List for the parts that keep slipping: the list lives on a board with To do, In progress and Done, Claude reads and writes it through a connection you set up once, and every task keeps a history of what changed. The same board is open in the browser, so what you say in a chat is what you see on the screen.

You sign in with an email code, no password. The yearly plan starts with a free month and you can cancel before it bills. Setup takes about two minutes: start on the homepage, then follow the connection guide for Claude.

More

Troubleshooting is on the Claude connection guide. Claude Code gets the same board with one terminal command, which is useful for turning the TODO comments in your code into tasks. The same connection works from ChatGPT, and how it works explains the board itself.

https://api.minosin.com/api/aitodolist/v1/mcp