clio-mcp

clio-mcp

A Model Context Protocol server for Clio Manage, the practice management software for law firms.

Lets Claude (or any MCP client) read and write your Clio data — contacts, matters, activities — directly from chat. Built and tested against Clio's v4 REST API.

Includes a documented workaround for Clio's silent rejection of billing_method on matter creation — see docs/flat-fee-workaround.md and the Confirmed Clio API quirks section below.

Tools (10)

Quick start

# 1. Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/Lawyered0/clio-mcp.git
cd clio-mcp
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

# 2. Get OAuth credentials from Clio (one-time, ~5 min)
#    See "Getting Clio OAuth credentials" below for the full dance.
#    You'll end up with: CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET, REFRESH_TOKEN.

# 3. Configure
cp .env.example .env
# edit .env with your credentials and (optional) default attorney id

# 4. Test it works (Ctrl+C to exit)
python clio_mcp_server.py --stdio

# 5. Wire it into your MCP client (verified paths below)
#    - Claude Desktop:   build a DXT (see docs/claude-desktop-dxt.md)  ← recommended
#    - Claude Code CLI:  edit ~/.claude/settings.json (see below)
#    - MCP Inspector:    mcp dev clio_mcp_server.py  (for development)

Verified clients

This server has been used in production against the following MCP clients:

TL;DR: if you're on Mac, install via DXT into Claude Desktop. If you're already a Claude Code CLI user, the JSON config is two lines. Either path takes ~5 minutes once you have OAuth credentials.

HTTP mode (not recommended yet)

The server can also run as an HTTP service:

python clio_mcp_server.py    # binds 127.0.0.1:8765/mcp by default

This was built for use with URL-based connectors (Cowork, claude.ai web, etc.) but those hosts typically require HTTPS, often reject 127.0.0.1 URLs, and may have additional security policies. Making this safe for production use means: terminating TLS (e.g. Caddy with tls internal), exposing it via a tunnel (e.g. Cloudflare Tunnel), and adding header-based auth inside the server. None of that is implemented or verified. PRs welcome.

Claude Code CLI config

Add to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "clio": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/clio-mcp/.venv/bin/python",
      "args": [
        "/absolute/path/to/clio-mcp/clio_mcp_server.py",
        "--stdio"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Restart your Claude Code session, then try clio_who_am_i to verify.

Claude Desktop config (DXT)

Claude Desktop uses DXT extensions. See docs/claude-desktop-dxt.md for a working manifest template and install instructions. Note: Claude Desktop requires a full app restart (Cmd+Q + relaunch) before a newly-installed DXT appears in any session's tool registry.

.env

CLIO_CLIENT_ID=<from Clio developer portal>
CLIO_CLIENT_SECRET=<from Clio developer portal>
CLIO_REFRESH_TOKEN=<from initial OAuth dance — see docs/oauth-setup.md>

# Optional: defaults to US (app.clio.com). For other regions:
#   CA: https://ca.app.clio.com/api/v4/  +  https://ca.app.clio.com/oauth/token
#   EU: https://eu.app.clio.com/api/v4/  +  https://eu.app.clio.com/oauth/token
#   AU: https://au.app.clio.com/api/v4/  +  https://au.app.clio.com/oauth/token
CLIO_BASE_URL=https://app.clio.com/api/v4/
CLIO_TOKEN_URL=https://app.clio.com/oauth/token

# Optional: if set, used as the default responsible_attorney + originating_attorney
# on clio_create_matter when the caller doesn't pass attorney_id explicitly.
CLIO_DEFAULT_ATTORNEY_ID=

chmod 600 .env for hygiene.

Getting Clio OAuth credentials (one-time)

This is the trickiest part of setup. Clio uses OAuth 2.0 authorization-code flow — you do this dance once to mint a refresh token, then the server handles access-token refreshes automatically. The refresh token is long-lived, so you should only ever do this once per OAuth app (unless the token gets revoked).

Step 1 — Create a developer application in Clio

Sign in to Clio and go to Settings → Developer Applications. Direct URL by region:

• US: https://app.clio.com/settings/developer_applications
• CA: https://ca.app.clio.com/settings/developer_applications
• EU/UK: https://eu.app.clio.com/settings/developer_applications
• AU: https://au.app.clio.com/settings/developer_applications

Click New Application. Fill in:

• Name: anything (e.g. Clio MCP)
• Redirect URI: http://localhost:8765/callback(Clio just needs the code to land somewhere — the page will fail to load when you're redirected there, that's expected and fine)
• Scope: check every scope you might want to use — adding scopes later requires re-running this whole dance. At minimum: contacts, matters, activities, users. Add bills, calendar, documents if you'll extend.

Save. You get back:

• Client ID (visible in the app list anytime)
• Client Secret (shown once on creation — copy it now, you cannot retrieve it later)

Step 2 — Get an authorization code

Visit this URL in your browser, substituting YOUR_CLIENT_ID and your region's host:

https://app.clio.com/oauth/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=http://localhost:8765/callback

Approve. Your browser will redirect to http://localhost:8765/callback?code=XXXXXXXX... and show a "connection refused" error page. Ignore the error — copy the code=XXXXXXXX value out of the browser's address bar.

The code is single-use and expires in ~10 minutes. Move quickly to Step 3.

Step 3 — Exchange the code for a refresh token

curl -X POST https://app.clio.com/oauth/token \
  -d "client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID" \
  -d "client_secret=YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET" \
  -d "grant_type=authorization_code" \
  -d "code=THE_CODE_FROM_STEP_2" \
  -d "redirect_uri=http://localhost:8765/callback"

(Substitute your region's host if not US.)

Response:

{
  "access_token": "<short-lived; ignore>",
  "token_type": "bearer",
  "expires_in": 2592000,
  "refresh_token": "<this is the one you want>"
}

Copy the refresh_token — that's what goes into .env as CLIO_REFRESH_TOKEN. The access_token you can discard; the server mints fresh ones on demand.

Step 4 — Drop into .env

CLIO_CLIENT_ID=<from Step 1>
CLIO_CLIENT_SECRET=<from Step 1>
CLIO_REFRESH_TOKEN=<from Step 3>

Run clio_who_am_i via your MCP client. If it returns 200 with your user record — you're done forever. If 401 — re-run from Step 2 (the code expired, or the redirect URI didn't match exactly).

Common gotchas

• redirect_uri must match EXACTLY between the app config, the /oauth/authorize URL, and the /oauth/token POST — including trailing slash, port, and protocol. Mismatches return generic 400 invalid_grant.
• Don't reuse the code — it's single-use. If you get invalid_grant on Step 3, the code probably expired (10 min limit) or was already used.
• Region matters — if your Clio account is on ca.app.clio.com, use that host throughout. Mixing US and non-US endpoints in the dance returns 400 invalid_grant or 401 later.
• Scope changes require re-doing the dance. If you add bills to the app's scopes later, you need a new auth code → new refresh token. Existing tokens don't auto-acquire new scopes.

For re-authorization (if your refresh token ever gets revoked) and additional troubleshooting, see docs/oauth-setup.md.

Confirmed Clio API quirks

These were discovered empirically against the live API. Trust them, don't re-derive:

Region routing

Clio runs on regional hosts. Mixing region endpoints in a single request/response cycle returns 401 invalid_token — a token minted at one region won't authenticate against another region's API. Pick one host and stick with it for both OAuth and API calls.

billing_method is silently ignored on POST /matters.json

This is the big one. Every value sent for billing_method ("flat", "Flat", "FLAT", "FlatRate", "flat_fee", "contingency", integers, etc.) results in billing_method: "hourly" on subsequent GET. PATCH after creation also returns 200 but doesn't change the value. ~16 companion field guesses (flat_rate_amount, flat_fee_amount, rate, matter_rate, billing_preference, etc.) all silently ignored too. The Clio web UI uses a private endpoint not exposed in the public REST API.

Workaround: leave matters as "hourly" and add a flat-amount Activity. See docs/flat-fee-workaround.md and use clio_create_flat_fee_activity.

TimeEntry total math

TimeEntry.total = quantity_in_hours × rate, not × price. So a TimeEntry with quantity_in_hours: 0 always totals $0 regardless of price. For flat-fee line items, use ExpenseEntry (total = quantity × price) — qty=1, price=N → total=N.

Activity field-name aliases

• POST accepts both description and note for the line-item text. GET only accepts note in ?fields=... — querying description returns 400 InvalidFields.
• rate is NOT a valid GET field on activities (returns 400). Use price × quantity.

matter_id filter footgun on /activities.json

List filter param is matter_id (singular int). matter or matter[id] are silently ignored and return account-wide activities — typo here returns wrong results without an error.

Default GET on activities returns minimal fields

A bare GET /activities/{id}.json returns only id and etag. You must explicitly pass ?fields=id,type,date,note,total,price,quantity,non_billable,... to get anything useful.

Address name is enum-validated

Must be exactly "Work", "Home", "Billing", or "Other". The natural-sounding "Business" returns 422. The _normalize_address helper auto-coerces invalid/missing names to "Work".

Mutating payloads must be wrapped

All POST/PATCH bodies must be {"data": {...}}. Sending the payload at root fails. The named tools handle this; the generic clio_api_request does NOT add the wrapper for you.

Contact type discriminator

Use "type": "Company" for entities (Inc., LLC, Ltd., numbered companies) and "type": "Person" for individual humans. Both POST to /contacts.json.

Refresh tokens may or may not rotate

Depends on the OAuth app config. The token manager handles both cases — if the refresh response includes a new refresh_token, it persists to .clio_tokens.json; if not, the .env value stays canonical. You don't need to reason about this in normal use.

Access token TTLs vary

Some accounts get ~1 hour TTL, others get 30 days (expires_in: 2592000). The token manager honors whatever the server returns.

Clio silently accepts unknown POST fields

Sending {"data": {"client": {"id": X}, "description": "...", "zzz_bogus": 1}} to /matters.json returns 201 with the unknown field dropped. Validation errors are NOT a reliable way to discover valid field names — you have to read the docs (or read this README).

/contacts.json and /matters.json deletes are idempotent-ish

DELETE returns 204 on success. DELETE on an already-deleted resource returns 404. DELETE on a contact with open bills returns 409 with a specific error code; on a contact that's a client of an open matter returns 422.

Bills are soft-deleted

DELETE on /bills/{id}.json returns 204 immediately, but the bill is moved to "void" state rather than purged from records. Probably an accounting/audit-trail design choice. Voided bills eventually drop off list endpoints.

practice_area_id doesn't drive billing

You might think setting practice_area_id to a "small claims" area would make the matter flat-fee. It doesn't. Practice areas are pure metadata; they don't affect any billing fields.

Architecture

The server is a single Python file (clio_mcp_server.py) using FastMCP from the official Anthropic MCP SDK. It runs on demand (stdio mode for Claude Code / Claude Desktop / MCP Inspector) or as a long-lived HTTP service (for URL-based connectors).

The token manager (ClioTokenManager) handles OAuth refresh transparently — every API call checks the cached access token, refreshes if expired (with a 60s safety buffer), and persists rotated refresh tokens to .clio_tokens.json (chmod 600).

All tools return a uniform {"status_code": int, "body": <parsed JSON>} shape so error payloads from Clio's validator come through verbatim — useful when something doesn't work as expected.

Contributing

PRs welcome, especially for:

• Additional tools (bills, trust requests, calendar entries, document uploads, etc.)
• Confirmed quirks I haven't documented
• Region/locale support
• Tests (the empirical findings would benefit from a recorded-cassette test suite)

If you discover Clio API behavior that contradicts what's documented here, please open an issue with a reproduction.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Acknowledgements

Built from frustration with the official documentation. The flat-fee workaround in particular took several hours of empirical testing to uncover — written up in docs/flat-fee-workaround.md so the next person doesn't have to.

By @BitGrateful.