claude-do

A terminal todo list with a live-reloading TUI and an MCP server so Claude can read and manage your tasks.

┌─ Todo Lists ──────────────────────────┐
│  work   personal   shopping           │
└───────────────────────────────────────┘
┌─ todos/work.txt ──────────────────────┐
│ [x] Write project proposal            │
│ [ ] Review pull requests              │  ← active task (cyan)
│ [ ] Update documentation              │
└───────────────────────────────────────┘
  ←→ switch  ↑↓ navigate  Enter toggle  d delete  q quit

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orangemelono/claude-do/master/install.sh | bash

Installs claude-do and mcp_server to ~/.local/bin. Override with CLAUDE_DO_INSTALL_DIR=/your/path.

Linux only for pre-built binaries. macOS: build from source.

Or build from source (requires Rust):

cargo build --release
# binaries in target/release/

Usage

TUI

./claude-do           # looks for ./todos/*.txt
./claude-do ~/tasks   # custom directory

Todo lists are plain .txt files with [ ] / [x] checkboxes:

+------------------------------------------+
|               WORK                       |
+------------------------------------------+
| [ ] Write project proposal               |
| [x] Set up CI pipeline                   |
+------------------------------------------+

Keys:

Key	Action
← / →	Switch between lists
↑ / ↓	Move cursor between tasks
Enter	Toggle task done/undone
d	Delete the current list
q / Esc	Quit

The TUI hot-reloads when files change on disk — edits from Claude or another tool show up instantly. New .txt files added to the directory appear as tabs automatically; deleted files disappear without needing a restart.

MCP Server (Claude Code integration)

Add to your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "claude-do": {
      "command": "/path/to/mcp_server",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

Run mcp_server from the directory that contains your todos/ folder. Claude then has access to five tools:

Tool	Description
create_todo_list	Create a new list with optional initial tasks
get_todo_list	Read a list's contents
toggle_todo	Mark a task done or undone by line number
highlight_task	Set the active/focused task (shown in cyan in the TUI)
delete_todo_list	Permanently delete a list — Claude will confirm with you first unless you explicitly asked it to delete

Todo file format

Files live in a todos/ directory and are plain text. The tab name in the TUI comes from the filename (without .txt). You can create them by hand or via create_todo_list.