Todoist Task Creation

Create tasks in Todoist from natural language input using the MCP Todoist tools.

User's Todoist Structure

All tasks go to Inbox — no separate projects.

Labels for categorization:

•professional — PhD hunting, job hunting, networking with faculty/professors, LinkedIn, career counseling, industry networking
•social — social activities, friends, dating, community

Active vs Backlog (determined by due date):

•Due today = active
•Due on other days or no due date = backlog

Defaults

Field	Default	Override when...
Project	Inbox	Always Inbox
Label	None	Content matches professional or social domain
Priority	p4 (lowest)	User says "high priority", "important", "urgent"
Due date	None (backlog)	User specifies "today", "tomorrow", a date, etc.

Label Auto-Detection

Infer label from task content:

Keywords/Context	Label
faculty, professor, PhD, grad school, research, academia, department, advisor, LinkedIn, recruiter, job, career, industry, interview, resume, networking (professional)	professional
friends, hangout, party, dinner, drinks, social event, birthday, dating, Hinge, community	social
Everything else	no label

Workflow

•Parse the user's natural language for: task content, label hints, priority, due date
•Apply defaults for any unspecified fields
•Call mcp__todoist__add-tasks with the parsed values
•Confirm creation with task name and key details

MCP Tool Reference

code

mcp__todoist__add-tasks
Parameters:
- tasks: array of task objects
  - content: string (required) — task title
  - description: string — additional details
  - labels: array of strings — e.g., ["professional"] or ["social"]
  - priority: "p1" | "p2" | "p3" | "p4" — p1 highest, p4 lowest
  - dueString: string — natural language date like "tomorrow", "next Friday"
  - duration: string — e.g., "2h", "30m"

Examples

User: "I need to email Professor Smith about research opportunities" → Inbox, Label: professional, Priority: p4, No due date

User: "Update my LinkedIn profile today" → Inbox, Label: professional, Priority: p4, Due: today

User: "Get groceries tomorrow" → Inbox, No label, Priority: p4, Due: tomorrow

User: "High priority: prepare for interview on Friday" → Inbox, Label: professional, Priority: p1, Due: Friday

User: "Grab coffee with Sarah this weekend" → Inbox, Label: social, Priority: p4, Due: this weekend