Mousetaile

Mousetail's goal is to be the simplest and most reliable way of connecting Anki to an LLM. It does not require any addons, just have anki installed and an LLM you'd like to connect to your decks.

For detailed instructions on integrating with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and other LLM tools:

- Minimal- supports core anki operations: create, read, update and delete
- Stable- works directly with anki's stable pylib api, no addons or deps
- Simple- no configuration required, automatically discovers your Anki collections

Selectively commit what you learn in conversation with an LLM to memory

"Create a deck based on our conversation so I don't forget critical details"

"Create a card - what is a coeffcient?, create a card - id the first coefficient in this polynomial"

"Check my french vocab deck for correctness and correct any mistakes, typos or errors"

Mousetail supports synchronizing your Anki collection with AnkiWeb or a self-hosted sync server. This allows you to keep your collection in sync across devices.

Sync with AnkiWeb (saves credentials for future syncs):

> "Save my AnkiWeb credentials: username is myuser@example.com and password is mypassword" > "Sync my collection with AnkiWeb"

Mousetail stores credentials securely in your system's credential manager:

- macOS:Keychain
- Windows:Credential Manager
- Linux:Secret Service (GNOME Keyring, KWallet, etc.)

- save_sync_credentials- Save username/password securely
- load_sync_credentials- Load saved credentials
- delete_sync_credentials- Remove saved credentials

- AnkiWeb sync(default) - Leave endpoint empty
- Self-hosted servers- Provide custom endpoint URL (e.g.,https://sync.example.com)
- Media sync- Enabled by default, includes images and audio files
- Collection-only sync- Setsync_media: falseto skip media

> "Save my sync credentials for AnkiWeb - username: user@example.com, password: mypass123" > "Sync my collection"

> "Save my sync credentials - username: john, password: secret, endpoint: https://sync.myserver.com" > "Sync my collection"

One-time sync without saving credentials:

> "Sync my collection with AnkiWeb using username user@example.com and password mypass123"

> "Sync my collection but don't sync media files"

You can set a default sync endpoint inconfig.json:

{ "sync": { "endpoint": "https://sync.example.com" } }

Leaveendpointasnullto use AnkiWeb by default.

- Close Anki first:Sync will fail if the Anki application is running
- Media sync:Media sync is slower and uses more bandwidth but ensures images/audio are synced
- Conflicts:If conflicts occur, try syncing from Anki desktop first to resolve them
- Security:Credentials are never stored in plain text - they're kept in your system's secure credential storage
- Set up anAnki sync server
- Configure credentials on the server (using environment variables likeSYNC_USER1=user:password)
- Save your credentials in Mousetail with the server endpoint
- Sync normally

For detailed sync server setup, see theofficial Anki documentation.

- macOS:~/Library/Application Support/Anki2/[Profile]/collection.anki2
- Linux:~/.local/share/Anki2/[Profile]/collection.anki2
- Windows:%APPDATA%\Anki2\[Profile]\collection.anki2

You don't need to configure paths - the server automatically discovers available collections, this can be customized using configuration.

The server can be customized through aconfig.jsonfile. See theUsage Guidefor configuration options.

git clone https://github.com/listfold/mousetail.git cd mousetail

{ "mcpServers": { "mousetail": { "type": "stdio", "command": "uv", "args": ["run", "python", "-m", "mousetail.mcp.stdio_server"], "env": { "PYTHONUNBUFFERED": "1" } } } }

Restart Claude Code:After the configuration is in place, restart Claude Code to load the MCP server.

- Use/contextin Claude Code to see available MCP tools
- The mousetail server should appear with all available tools (list_collections, create_note, sync_collection, etc.)

- Close the Anki desktop application before testing
- Test credential management:save_sync_credentials,load_sync_credentials,delete_sync_credentials
- Test sync:sync_collectionwith your AnkiWeb credentials or self-hosted server

Mousetail was written because all the existing MCP Anki tools depend on theAnkiConnectaddon.

AnkiConnect is a HTTP server for Anki, it was originally created to support connecting browser extensions likeyomichanto Anki. For MCP development, it is not necessary and introduces issues:

Mousetail has a much simpler approach. It integrates directly with Anki'spylib. This is a stable API that's part of Anki's core, it therefore is not subject to arbitrary or frequent change, and does not require any 3rd-party addons.

uv run python -m sphinx -b html docs docs/_build/html

Manage Anki flashcards and decks using the Anki-Connect plugin.