TickTick CLI

Every TickTick surface — tasks, habits, focus, daily notes — with a corruption-proof daily-note contract and offline analytics no other TickTick tool has.

Covers both TickTick APIs: the official Open API and the richer internal V2 surface (habits, focus records, completed-task history, batch ops). The 'note edit' command encodes a field-whitelist write contract that cannot corrupt TEXT-kind daily notes, and the local SQLite mirror powers 'agenda', 'review', 'habits streaks', and 'focus stats' — ritual-shaped commands that replace multi-call fan-outs.

Authentication

Two tiers. The V2 internal API (habits, focus, daily notes, batch) authenticates with a session token: set TICKTICK_USERNAME and TICKTICK_PASSWORD and the CLI signs on automatically, or set TICKTICK_SESSION_TOKEN with the 't' cookie from a logged-in browser session (required for Google-SSO accounts without a password). The optional V1 Open API tier uses TICKTICK_API_TOKEN (OAuth bearer from developer.ticktick.com). Requests send a browser-like User-Agent because the API returns 503 to default clients.

Quick Start

# Health check — verifies config shape and which auth tiers are configured, no credentials needed
ticktick-pp-cli doctor --dry-run

# Hydrate the local SQLite mirror that powers agenda, review, and streaks
ticktick-pp-cli sync --resources tasks,habits,focus

# Today's tasks, habits with checkin state, and focus sessions in one bounded response
ticktick-pp-cli agenda --json

# Preview a safe daily-note append — the contract that can never flip the note's kind
ticktick-pp-cli note edit --date today --append "14:30 deep-work block done" --dry-run

# Week-in-review data pack, narrowed with --select to keep agent context small
ticktick-pp-cli review --since 7d --json --select completed.title,focus_totals

Unique Features

These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.

Corruption-proof writes

• note edit — Edit your daily note's content with a corruption-proof contract — the command can never flip the note's task kind or break its subtasks.

  Use this instead of a raw task update whenever the target is a daily note; raw updates through generic tools have corrupted notes before.

  ticktick-pp-cli note edit --date today --append "20:15 wrapped the printing-press build" --dry-run
  

Local state that compounds

• agenda — One command returns today's tasks, habits with checkin state, and focus sessions together.

  Reach for this at session start instead of fanning out list calls; one bounded response covers the whole briefing.

  ticktick-pp-cli agenda --json --select tasks.title,habits.name
  

• review — Gather a week of completed tasks, daily notes, focus totals, and habit checkins as one structured pack ready for synthesis.

  Use for weekly-review synthesis instead of paging completed tasks and re-reading seven daily notes by hand.

  ticktick-pp-cli review --since 7d --json
  

• habits streaks — Current streak, longest streak, and at-risk-today flags for every habit.

  Answers 'which habits are about to break' without hand-rolling date math over raw checkins.

  ticktick-pp-cli habits streaks --json
  

• focus stats — Focus/pomodoro time aggregated per day or per project over any window.

  Use for weekly focus totals instead of scraping raw focus records.

  ticktick-pp-cli focus stats --since 7d --json
  

Recipes

Morning briefing

ticktick-pp-cli agenda --json --agent

One bounded response with today's tasks, habit state, and focus sessions for a session-start briefing.

Log a focus block to the daily note

ticktick-pp-cli note edit --date today --append "15:00-15:45 client audit prep"

Timestamped append through the corruption-proof write path.

Friday review pack, narrowed for agents

ticktick-pp-cli review --since 7d --agent --select completed.title,notes.content,focus_totals.by_day

Deeply nested week pack narrowed with --select so synthesis doesn't drown in raw JSON.

Which habits are about to break

ticktick-pp-cli habits streaks --json --select name,current_streak,at_risk

Streak math over synced checkins with only the decision-relevant fields.

Weekly focus hours by project

ticktick-pp-cli focus stats --since 7d --by project --json

Aggregated pomodoro/focus durations from the local mirror.

Usage

Run ticktick-pp-cli --help for the full command reference and flag list.

Paths & environment variables

This CLI separates local files into four path kinds:

Kind	Contents
config	User-editable settings such as config.toml and saved profiles
data	Durable local data: credentials.toml, data.db, cookies, browser-session proof files, and other auth sidecars
state	Runtime state such as persisted queries, jobs, and teach.log
cache	Regenerable HTTP/cache files

Each kind resolves independently. The ladder is:

1. Per-kind env var: TICKTICK_CONFIG_DIR, TICKTICK_DATA_DIR, TICKTICK_STATE_DIR, or TICKTICK_CACHE_DIR
2. --home <dir> for this invocation
3. TICKTICK_HOME for a flat relocated root
4. XDG env vars: XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME, XDG_STATE_HOME, XDG_CACHE_HOME
5. Platform defaults matching existing installs

For containers and agent sandboxes, prefer a single relocated root:

export TICKTICK_HOME=/srv/ticktick
ticktick-pp-cli doctor

Under TICKTICK_HOME=/srv/ticktick, the four dirs resolve to /srv/ticktick/config, /srv/ticktick/data, /srv/ticktick/state, and /srv/ticktick/cache.

MCP servers do not receive CLI flags from the host. Put relocation in the host env block:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ticktick": {
      "command": "ticktick-pp-mcp",
      "env": {
        "TICKTICK_HOME": "/srv/ticktick"
      }
    }
  }
}

Precedence matters in fleets: an ambient per-kind variable such as TICKTICK_DATA_DIR overrides an explicit --home for that kind. Use TICKTICK_HOME or the per-kind variables for durable fleet relocation; treat --home as the weaker per-invocation lever.

Relocation is one-way. Unsetting TICKTICK_HOME does not move files back to platform defaults, and doctor cannot find credentials left under a former root. Move the files manually before unsetting relocation variables.

Existing installs keep working because the platform-default rung matches the legacy layout. On the first auth write, stored secrets leave config.toml and are consolidated into credentials.toml under the data directory. Run ticktick-pp-cli doctor --fail-on warn to check path and credential-location warnings in automation.

Commands

completed

Completed task history

• ticktick-pp-cli completed - Completed tasks in a date window

focus

Focus / pomodoro records

• ticktick-pp-cli focus - Focus and pomodoro records, most recent first

habits

Habits and habit checkins

• ticktick-pp-cli habits checkin - Upsert habit checkins (batch add/update)
• ticktick-pp-cli habits checkins - Query habit checkins after a date stamp
• ticktick-pp-cli habits list - List all habits

projects

Projects (lists)

• ticktick-pp-cli projects - List all projects

tags

Tags

• ticktick-pp-cli tags - List all tags

tasks

Tasks — all uncompleted tasks via the V2 sync surface, single-task get, and batch mutations

• ticktick-pp-cli tasks batch - Batch create/update/delete tasks (arrays of task objects; updates must carry id, projectId, etag and must NOT include kind)
• ticktick-pp-cli tasks get - Get a single task by id (full JSON incl. kind, etag, childIds)
• ticktick-pp-cli tasks list - List all uncompleted tasks (from the V2 sync check)

user

Account profile

• ticktick-pp-cli user - Authenticated user profile

Output Formats

# Human-readable table (default in terminal, JSON when piped)
ticktick-pp-cli completed

# JSON for scripting and agents
ticktick-pp-cli completed --json

# Filter to specific fields
ticktick-pp-cli completed --json --select id,name,status

# Dry run — show the request without sending
ticktick-pp-cli completed --dry-run

# Agent mode — JSON + compact + no prompts in one flag
ticktick-pp-cli completed --agent

Agent Usage

This CLI is designed for AI agent consumption:

• Non-interactive - never prompts, every input is a flag
• Pipeable - --json output to stdout, errors to stderr
• Filterable - --select id,name returns only fields you need
• Previewable - --dry-run shows the request without sending
• Explicit retries - add --idempotent to create retries when a no-op success is acceptable
• Confirmable - --yes for explicit confirmation of destructive actions
• Piped input - write commands can accept structured input when their help lists --stdin
• Offline-friendly - sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
• Agent-safe by default - no colors or formatting unless --human-friendly is set

Exit codes: 0 success, 2 usage error, 3 not found, 4 auth error, 5 API error, 7 rate limited, 10 config error.

Health Check

ticktick-pp-cli doctor

Verifies configuration, credentials, and connectivity to the API.

Configuration

Run ticktick-pp-cli doctor to see the resolved config, data, state, and cache directories. The platform-default config path is ~/.config/ticktick-pp-cli/config.toml; --home, TICKTICK_HOME, and per-kind env vars can relocate it.

Static request headers can be configured under headers; per-command header overrides take precedence.

Environment variables:

Name	Kind	Required	Description
TICKTICK_SESSION_TOKEN	per_call	Yes	Set to your API credential.

agentcookie (optional)

If you use agentcookie to sync secrets across machines, this CLI auto-adopts agentcookie-managed credentials with no extra setup. When the daemon writes to this CLI's config, ticktick-pp-cli doctor reports agentcookie: detected and auth-status labels the source as agentcookie. Skip this section if you don't use agentcookie - the CLI works the same as any other.

Troubleshooting

Authentication errors (exit code 4)

• Run ticktick-pp-cli doctor to check credentials
• Verify the environment variable is set: echo $TICKTICK_SESSION_TOKEN Not found errors (exit code 3)
• Check the resource ID is correct
• Run the list command to see available items

API-specific

• HTTP 503 on every request — The API rejects default HTTP clients; the CLI sends a browser-like User-Agent automatically — if you overrode it in config, remove the override.
• V2 signon fails but the password is correct (Google-SSO account) — Google-SSO accounts may have no password. Set one at ticktick.com account settings, or copy the 't' cookie from DevTools into TICKTICK_SESSION_TOKEN.
• note edit reports an etag conflict — The note changed since the last read; re-run the command — it re-fetches the task and retries once automatically.
• agenda or review returns empty — Run 'ticktick-pp-cli sync --resources tasks,habits,focus' first; these commands read the local mirror.

Sources & Inspiration

This CLI was built by studying these projects and resources:

• tick-mcp — Python
• ticktick-mcp-server — TypeScript
• ticktick-py — Python
• ticktick-api-v2 — Python
• ticktick-sdk — Python
• ticktick-mcp — Python
• mcp-ticktick — TypeScript
• ticktick-cli — Go

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