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Enabling Flipnem MCP in Claude

The Flipnem MCP server requires the Scholar plan.

Flipnem exposes a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that lets AI assistants — including Claude Desktop — connect directly to your account. Once connected, the AI can browse your decks, read Source Notes, create sub-decks, and add cards on your behalf.

What you can do with Claude via MCP

Run deck reviews. Claude can act as a flashcard quizmaster, fetching your due cards, presenting each one, waiting for your answer, and submitting your self-rating back to Flipnem's FSRS scheduler. Your review history and intervals update exactly as if you had studied in the app.

Experiment with card styles. Ask Claude to restructure a deck: break a large deck into focused sub-decks, rewrite cards as cloze deletions, add reverse cards, adjust difficulty, or reorganize by topic. The MCP tools give Claude full read and write access to AI-managed decks.

ASCII Mnemonic Animations. Flipnem Basic cards have two mnemonic fields: Mnemonic Text and Mnemonic Rich. When the Mnemonic Rich field contains a JSON array of frames, Flipnem renders it as an animated ASCII art loop: each frame has an art block and a caption, cycling automatically during study.

You can ask Claude to generate these animations for you. Describe the concept you want to remember and Claude can produce a sequence of ASCII frames that encode the answer through imagery and story. See our blog post for examples and inspiration.

What is the MCP Server?

The Model Context Protocol is an open standard that lets AI tools talk to external services through a defined set of tools. Flipnem's MCP server is available at:

https://flipnem.com/api/mcp

Available tools

The agent has access to the tools below. Tools that modify a deck (create cards, edit cards, create sub-decks, etc.) only work on decks where you have enabled Agent managed — see Access Levels. The full list, including input schemas, is also discoverable by any MCP client at runtime via the standard tools/list call.

Tool What it does
list_decks List all of the user's decks with their due card counts.
get_deck_info Get detailed information about a specific deck including a breakdown of new, learning, and review cards due, plus source notes and AI instructions.
get_due_cards Fetch due cards for a deck in FSRS priority order.
get_all_cards Fetch every card in a deck in creation order, regardless of due state.
answer_card Submit an answer rating for a card after the user has responded.
update_deck_instructions Save AI instructions for a deck.
create_deck Create a new top-level deck and enable agent write access on it.
create_subdeck Create a child deck under an existing deck that has agent write access enabled.
add_card Add a card to a deck where agent write access is enabled.
delete_card Permanently delete a card from a deck where agent write access is enabled.
delete_deck Soft-delete a deck (moves to trash, recoverable by the user for 30 days).
delete_subdeck Soft-delete a child deck (moves to trash, recoverable by the user for 30 days).
rename_deck Rename a deck or move it in the hierarchy.
set_ai_control Enable or disable agent write access on a deck.
edit_card Edit the content of an existing card in an agent-managed deck.
add_tag Add a tag to a card.
remove_tag Remove a tag from a card.
create_tag_deck Create a tag deck — a virtual deck that collects cards across all decks that share specified tags.
reorder_cards Reorder the cards in an agent-managed deck by providing the full list of card IDs in the desired order.
delete_tag_deck Delete a tag deck.
upload_media Upload an image to the user's Flipnem media library and return its filename for use in add_card or edit_card.

Access Levels

Quizmaster mode (default)

Out of the box, a connected agent has read-only access to your collection. It can list your decks, read your cards, and run review sessions — acting as a dedicated quizmaster that submits your ratings back to the FSRS scheduler in real time. This is a great place to start, and many people never need to go further.

AI-managed decks

When you are ready to let the agent do more, open any deck's ⋯ menu → Deck Details and enable Agent managed. This gives the agent full write access to that deck and all its sub-decks: it can create sub-decks, add and edit cards, and create Source Notes from material you provide.

Each AI-managed deck has a dedicated AI Instructions field (also called deck memory). The agent reads this field at the start of every session, so anything you store there — special study instructions, mnemonics, notes on your progress — is automatically available without you having to repeat it. The agent can also update this field itself, which is useful for carrying forward tweaks you agree on mid-session.

This is the recommended starting point for agent-assisted deck building.

Global agent permissions (advanced)

Once you are comfortable with how the agent behaves on individual decks, you can grant broader permissions under Settings → Agent Permissions. The most relevant option here is Mark decks as AI-managed, which allows the agent to enable AI management on any deck in your collection when you ask it to — rather than requiring you to toggle it manually in Deck Details first. All other write actions still respect the per-deck AI-managed flag; this setting just lets the agent flip that flag on your behalf.

Deck deletion is not immediate. If the agent deletes a deck, it goes to your Deleted Decks page rather than disappearing immediately — you have 30 days to restore it with full card history intact. Individual card deletions are permanent, however, so there is still some risk at the card level.

Encrypted and inactive decks are off-limits. The agent cannot see or modify decks that are encrypted or marked inactive.

Setting Up Claude Desktop

  1. Open Claude Desktop and go to Settings → Connectors → Go to Customize.
  2. Click the + button and choose Add Custom Connector.
  3. For Name enter flipnem.
  4. For Remote MCP Server URL enter https://flipnem.com/api/mcp.
  5. Click Save — you will be taken to Flipnem to grant Claude access. Click Allow.

The OAuth token is generated automatically as part of this flow. Once granted, Claude Desktop has access to your Flipnem account via MCP.

You can revoke this access at any time from Settings → API Keys — OAuth tokens appear there alongside regular API keys.

Getting Started: Build a Deck with Claude Desktop

This walkthrough takes you from a blank deck to a fully populated study deck built by Claude, using a piece of source material you provide.

Step 1 — Create a new deck and add a Source Note

  1. On the Decks page, click New Deck and give it a name (e.g. The Raven or Chapter 4: Cell Biology).
  2. Open the deck's ⋯ menu → Inspect Cards → Add Card.
  3. Set the Note Type to Source.
  4. Fill in the Title (e.g. The Raven — full text) and paste your material into the Text field.
  5. Click Save.

The source material is now stored with the deck and will be visible to the AI on every session.

Step 2 — Enable AI management

  1. Open the deck's ⋯ menu → Deck Details.
  2. Scroll to the AI section.
  3. Toggle Agent managed on.

The 🤖 badge appears on the deck. The deck is now writable by the AI.

Step 3 — Connect Claude Desktop via MCP

Follow the Setting Up Claude Desktop steps above. Once authorized, Claude Desktop has access to your Flipnem account through the MCP tools.

Step 4 — Ask Claude to build your deck

Open a new conversation in Claude Desktop. Tell Claude what you want:

"I have a deck called The Raven with a Source Note containing the full poem. Please create sub-decks to help me memorize it — one for vocabulary, one for stanza-by-stanza comprehension, and one for recitation practice. Add cards to each."

Claude will:

  • Call list_decks to find your deck
  • Call get_deck_info to read the Source Note text
  • Call create_subdeck to create each sub-deck
  • Call add_card repeatedly to populate them

You can watch the cards appear in Flipnem in real time.

Step 5 — Refine

If the cards are not quite right, tell Claude in the same conversation:

"The recitation cards should only blank out one phrase per card, not whole lines."

Claude can add, adjust, or delete cards and sub-decks based on your feedback. You can also set persistent instructions for the deck — ask Claude to save them so every future session follows your preferences automatically.

Once you are happy, start a Study session in Flipnem and begin learning.