CloudKit MCP

Give Codex, Claude Code, and other MCP clients a safe, read-only view into CloudKit. Inspect records and zones, follow change state, check subscriptions, and compare what two accounts can see—without handing database mutation access to the agent. ☁️

CloudKit MCP is especially useful for questions like:

• “Did this record reach CloudKit, and can the invited participant see it?”
• “Do the owner/private and participant/shared views have matching metadata?”
• “Which zones changed, and what bounded change evidence is available?”
• “Is this likely a server-visibility issue or something that still needs client-side sync evidence?”

Quick start

You need Node.js 24+, a CloudKit container, a non-secret profile file, and credentials for each account view you want to inspect. Credential import is the only required interactive terminal step; secrets are read with echo disabled and never belong in chat or MCP arguments.

See Setup for the profile format, credential import, and authentication modes.

Codex

Run this once, replacing both paths:

codex mcp add cloudkit -- \
  npx --yes --package=@thatfactory/cloudkit-mcp@0.2.0 \
  cloudkit-mcp serve \
  --profiles /absolute/path/to/cloudkit-profiles.json \
  --credential-store /absolute/private/path/cloudkit-credentials

Restart Codex after changing MCP configuration so the new server process is loaded.

Claude Code

claude mcp add cloudkit -- \
  npx --yes --package=@thatfactory/cloudkit-mcp@0.2.0 \
  cloudkit-mcp serve \
  --profiles /absolute/path/to/cloudkit-profiles.json \
  --credential-store /absolute/private/path/cloudkit-credentials

Then ask your agent to call get_context before probe_access. The first call confirms offline policy; the second verifies one explicit account and database scope.

What your agent can inspect

• Public, private, and shared views allowed by each profile.
• Owner-aware zones and exact record metadata.
• Policy-bounded indexed queries and selected payload fields.
• Privacy-safe sharing and subscription structure where supported.
• Database and zone changes through opaque, process-bound cursors.
• Independently authenticated owner/participant views of the same exact records.

The server ships no CloudKit mutation tool, and --allow-writes is rejected. Profiles are deny-by-default startup policy: an agent cannot expand scopes, record types, queryable fields, payload fields, or identity disclosure.

See Capabilities and limitations for the complete tool list, live-evidence boundaries, and guidance for interpreting results. MCP clients can also read the packaged cloudkit://capabilities resource.

Safety at a glance

• Credentials stay in an explicitly configured owner-only local directory.
• Credentials never appear in profiles, tool results, stdout, fixtures, or the npm package.
• Web-user requests serialize session rotation and fail closed when session state is uncertain.
• Provider identities and cursors are opaque by default.
• Remote requests use a closed read-only registry and only Apple's fixed CloudKit Web Services origin.
• Record content is treated as untrusted data, never agent instructions.

Example prompts

• “Show my configured profiles and explain what each one permits.”
• “Compare these exact records through the owner private and participant shared views using independently selected zones.”
• “Read changes for this shared zone and explain what the returned coverage does and does not prove.”
• “Check the available subscription structure without returning identifiers or notification payloads.”

Development

npm ci
npm run check

The full check covers schema and policy consistency, strict type checking, deterministic security and contract tests, a clean build, package-content verification, and installation/execution from a real tarball outside the checkout.

Approved dependency exceptions are documented in Dependencies.