things-mac

What This Skill Does

The things-mac skill provides a robust bridge between OpenClaw and Things 3, the popular task management application on macOS. It leverages the open-source things3-cli to enable both read-only operations against the local Things database and write operations using the native Things URL scheme. This allows you to orchestrate your workflow by automating task creation, status updates, and database querying directly from your AI agent. Whether you need to pull your daily agenda, search through your backlog, or programmatically insert new tasks into specific projects, this skill treats your task manager as a first-class data source.

Installation

To get started, ensure you have Go installed on your machine. For Apple Silicon Macs, run: GOBIN=/opt/homebrew/bin go install github.com/ossianhempel/things3-cli/cmd/things@latest. Once installed, it is critical to grant 'Full Disk Access' to your terminal emulator or the OpenClaw.app binary in macOS System Settings under Privacy & Security, otherwise, the skill will be unable to read the local SQLite database. Optionally, set your THINGS_AUTH_TOKEN environment variable to streamline modification operations, preventing the need to pass authorization credentials in every command call.

Use Cases

This skill is perfect for users who want to integrate task management into their automated routines. You can use it to fetch your 'Today' list to start your morning briefing, move tasks between projects, or archive tasks as 'Completed' or 'Canceled' based on the output of other AI processes. It is particularly useful for developers or knowledge workers who aggregate project tasks from emails or chat transcripts and want to push them into specific Things 'Areas' or 'Projects' with minimal friction.

Example Prompts

1. "Check my 'Inbox' in Things and summarize the top 5 items for me."
2. "Add a new task titled 'Research AI Agents' with the note 'Focus on autonomous decision-making' into my 'Work' project."
3. "Search my Things database for tasks tagged with 'urgent' and mark them as completed."

Tips & Limitations

Note that this skill is strictly for macOS. While it excels at adding and updating, the current version of things3-cli does not support hard-deleting tasks; you should favor marking items as 'completed' or 'canceled' instead. Always utilize the --dry-run flag when testing new automation scripts to preview the generated URL scheme before execution. Finally, if you have multiple database files, ensure the THINGSDB environment variable is correctly configured to point to your active ThingsData-* folder.