Trello MCP Server Setup for Cursor IDE (2026)

How do you set up the Trello MCP server in Cursor? Generate a Trello API key and an authorized token from Trello's developer page, add a trello block to ~/.cursor/mcp.json with both values, then restart Cursor. Unlike Asana or GitHub, there's no OAuth app to register and no admin approval to wait on — Trello's key-plus-token pair is about as simple as MCP auth gets, which is convenient right up until you remember it's also a long-lived, fairly broad credential sitting in a plaintext config file.

This guide covers the auth flow, the config, and the parts of Trello's data model (boards, lists, cards) that trip people up when an AI is doing the navigating instead of a human clicking around.

What You Can Do With Trello MCP in Cursor

Once connected, Cursor can typically:

Whether write operations (creating cards, moving them, commenting) are available depends on the scope you grant when generating your token — Trello lets you request read-only or read-and-write access at generation time, and it's worth actually looking at that screen instead of clicking through it.

Prerequisites

Step 1: Get a Trello API Key and Token

1. Log into Trello, then visit Trello's developer API key page (linked from your Trello account settings, under Power-Ups admin)
2. Copy your API Key — it's tied to your account and doesn't expire on its own
3. On the same page, follow the link to generate a Token — this opens an authorization screen where you choose read-only or read/write access and how long the token stays valid
4. Approve the grant and copy the token — like most of these credentials, it's shown once

Keep the key and token together. A token generated against a different key won't authenticate — they're issued as a pair, not independently.

Step 2: Install the Trello MCP Server

npm install -g trello-mcp-server

Package naming for smaller-ecosystem MCP servers shifts more often than for the big platforms — if that exact package has moved or been renamed, search npm or the MCP server directory for "trello mcp server" to find the current maintained one before assuming the command below is stale.

Step 3: Configure Cursor

Open Cursor → Settings → MCP and add the Trello server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trello": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "trello-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "TRELLO_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here",
        "TRELLO_TOKEN": "your-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Cursor to load the config.

Step 4: Test the Connection

In Cursor chat, try:

List my Trello boards

Or:

Show me the cards in the "Doing" list on the Website Redesign board

A response naming real boards and cards confirms the connection is live.

Step 5: Practical Workflows

Morning triage

List all cards assigned to me across my boards that are due this week

Filing a card mid-conversation

Create a card in the "Backlog" list of the Website Redesign board titled "Fix broken checkout link on mobile," with a due date of Friday

Moving work forward

Move the "Update pricing page copy" card from Doing to Done on the Marketing board

Context before starting work

Find the card about the Q3 launch checklist and summarize the checklist items and any comments

Cross-board search

Search all my boards for any card mentioning "checkout bug" and tell me their current list and board

Trello MCP vs. the Other Task Board Tools on This Site

This site also covers Asana, Linear, and ClickUp. Trello is the lightest of the four, in both senses of the word — the data model is just boards, lists, and cards, with no native sprints, no custom field system, and none of ClickUp's deep configuration surface. That's a feature for small teams and personal boards, and a real limitation for teams that outgrew a simple Kanban view and moved to Jira or Linear specifically because Trello's model stopped fitting how they work.

If your team's actual board lives in Trello, don't expect the AI to reason about sprints or story points — those concepts don't exist in Trello's API because they don't exist in the product. Ask about cards, lists, and due dates instead of forcing Jira-shaped vocabulary onto a tool that doesn't model it that way.

Troubleshooting

"Invalid key or token" error
The key and token must come from the same authorization flow. If you regenerated one without the other, start over: get a fresh key, then generate a new token against that specific key.

AI can read cards but can't create or move them
Check the scope you granted when generating the token. A read-only token was likely issued if you clicked through the authorization screen without checking what it defaulted to — regenerate with read/write access explicitly selected.

"Board not found" when you know the board exists
Trello's API generally resolves boards by ID, not display name, and board names aren't unique across an account with several similarly-named boards. Ask Cursor to list your boards first so it has the actual board ID to work from, rather than assuming a name-only reference will resolve correctly.

Card created but landed in the wrong list
Be explicit about both the board and list name in your prompt. Trello list names like "To Do" or "Done" are common across many boards, and an ambiguous prompt can resolve against the wrong board if you have more than one open in recent context.

Token stopped working after previously working fine
Tokens generated with an expiration (30 days, for example, rather than "never") do expire. Regenerate one from the same API key and update the config.

When Not to Use This

If your board drives an automation (a Power-Up that triggers a deploy or notification when a card hits a specific list, for instance), be careful letting an AI move cards through that list unattended. A model moving a card because it looked like the logical next step, and inadvertently firing an automation, is a low-probability but annoying failure mode — keep an eye on write operations against boards wired into anything automated.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does Trello MCP use OAuth like the Asana or Cloudflare servers on this site?
A: No. Trello uses a simpler API key plus token pair, generated once from your account settings, rather than a browser-based OAuth grant. There's no remote endpoint to bridge — this is a local server reading your account directly.

Q: Can it create or move cards, or only read them?
A: Both, depending on the scope selected when you generated the token. Read-only is the safer default if you're just trying it out; switch to read/write once you trust the workflows enough to let the AI file or move cards on its own.

Q: Does this work with Trello's free plan?
A: Yes. Board, list, and card access through the API works the same regardless of plan tier — the free-vs-paid differences in Trello are mostly around Power-Ups, automation rules (Butler), and board limits, not core read/write API access.

Q: I'm on multiple Trello workspaces — does one token cover all of them?
A: A single token is tied to your account, and it can see whatever boards your account has access to across workspaces you're a member of. There's no per-workspace token in Trello the way some tools scope credentials per-org.

Q: What's the actual risk of the API key and token compared to an OAuth grant?
A: A leaked key/token pair gives whoever has it the same access you granted at generation time, for as long as the token is valid, with no separate revocation step beyond regenerating it. Treat it like any other static secret — don't commit it, and regenerate it if it ever ends up somewhere it shouldn't.

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