CLI & MCP

Connect your vault to MCP-capable AI tools like Claude Desktop, Cursor, or claude-cli so the AI can search, read, write and organize your local notes directly. The command-line tool is zskcli; it talks to your local vault and needs no GUI.

For v1.6.0 on Apple Silicon (M-series) Macs. Intel Macs need a separate build — contact the provider.

Three steps

1. Install and launch the app once — Drag Donkey的百宝箱.app into Applications and open it once; this auto-installs the zskcli command-line tool. Verify in a terminal:

```bash
zskcli --help
```

If you get command not found, create the link manually once (asks for your password):

```bash
sudo ln -sf "/Applications/Donkey的百宝箱.app/Contents/Resources/binaries/zskcli" /usr/local/bin/zskcli
```

2. Set your default vault — point it at your notes folder:

```bash
zskcli vault use /Users/you/your-vault
```

3. Add the MCP config in your AI tool — for Claude Desktop, edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json, swap in the path from step 2, then restart:

```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"zsk": {
"command": "/usr/local/bin/zskcli",
"args": ["--vault", "/Users/you/your-vault", "mcp-server"]
}
}
}
```

Other AI tools

Any tool that speaks stdio MCP works with the same args: use the absolute path /usr/local/bin/zskcli for command (GUI tools don't inherit your shell PATH), and ["--vault", "<your-vault-path>", "mcp-server"] for args. You can also use the ZSK_VAULT env var instead of --vault.

• Claude Desktop: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Cursor: Settings → MCP → Add Server
• claude-cli: claude mcp add

What the AI can do

The AI gets 37 tools over your vault, covering: notes (read/write, create, append, rename, trash), search (filename / full-text / tag), backlinks (backlinks, outgoing & unresolved links, rename with reference updates), knowledge graph, Canvas (flowcharts / trees / boards), tag stats, link index, and vault management.

Just ask: "Find every note mentioning 'product roadmap'", "Create today's meeting note", or "Rename 'Old plan' to 'Plan V2' and update all references."

FAQ

• zskcli not found: launch the app once; if it still fails, run the sudo ln -sf command above.
• MCP fails to connect: usually no vault is set. Confirm zskcli vault use, or that your config has --vault / ZSK_VAULT; test with zskcli --vault <path> vault info.
• Must command be an absolute path?: yes — GUI tools don't inherit the terminal PATH, so always use /usr/local/bin/zskcli.