ianaleck/harvest-mcp-server

🌾 Harvest MCP Server

Unofficial Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for seamless integration with the Harvest time tracking API

⚠️ Disclaimer: This is an unofficial, third-party integration with the Harvest API. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Harvest or Forecast (the company behind Harvest).

✨ Features

• 🔗 Complete Harvest API v2 Coverage - 40+ tools covering all major endpoints
• 🛡️ Type-Safe - Full TypeScript support with Zod validation
• ⚡ High Performance - Built with async/await and proper rate limiting
• 🧪 Thoroughly Tested - Comprehensive unit, integration, and contract tests
• 📊 Rich Logging - Structured logging for debugging and monitoring
• 🔄 Auto-Retry - Intelligent retry logic with exponential backoff
• 📖 MCP Compliant - Works with Claude Desktop and other MCP clients

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• Harvest account with API access
• MCP-compatible client (like Claude Desktop)

Installation

# Install globally
npm install -g @ianaleck/harvest-mcp-server

# Or install locally
npm install @ianaleck/harvest-mcp-server

Configuration

1. Get your Harvest API credentials:

   • Go to Harvest → Settings → Developers → Personal Access Tokens
   • Create a new token
   • Note your Account ID (visible in URL or settings)

2. Configure your MCP client (e.g., Claude Desktop):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "harvest": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@ianaleck/harvest-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "HARVEST_ACCESS_TOKEN": "your_harvest_personal_access_token",
        "HARVEST_ACCOUNT_ID": "your_harvest_account_id"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Start using with Claude!

🎯 What You Can Do

Once connected, you can ask Claude to help with:

⏱️ Time Tracking

• "Show me all my time entries for this week"
• "Start a timer for the 'Development' task on the 'Website Project'"
• "How many hours did I work on Project X last month?"

📋 Project Management

• "List all active projects for client Acme Corp"
• "Create a new project called 'Mobile App' for client TechStart"
• "Show me project budget vs actual time spent"

👥 Team Management

• "Who are all the users in our Harvest account?"
• "Show me John's time entries for last week"

💰 Financial Tracking

• "Generate an expense report for Q4"
• "Show me all unpaid invoices"
• "What's our total billable hours this month?"

🛠️ Available Tools

🧪 Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/ianaleck/harvest-mcp-server.git
cd harvest-mcp-server
npm install

Environment Configuration

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your Harvest API credentials

Testing

# Run all tests
npm test

# Run with coverage
npm run test:coverage

# Run specific test suites
npm run test:unit
npm run test:integration
npm run test:contract

Building

# Build for production
npm run build

# Start development server
npm run dev

📋 API Requirements

This server requires a Harvest account with API access. Users must comply with:

• Harvest API Terms of Service
• Harvest API Rate Limits (100 requests per 15 seconds)

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our for details.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Make your changes with tests
4. Ensure all tests pass (npm test)
5. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
6. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
7. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Harvest for providing an excellent time tracking API
• Model Context Protocol team for the MCP specification
• Anthropic for Claude and the MCP SDK

📞 Support

• 🐛 Bug Reports: GitHub Issues
• 💡 Feature Requests: GitHub Discussions
• 📖 Documentation: MCP Documentation