Can Claude / ChatGPT / Cursor use Contact Book directly?

Yes, via the MCP server. It's a stdio JSON-RPC server that wires into Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-aware client in five lines of config. The list of tools matches your data model 1:1 - whatever a CRUD type exposes in the UI is exposed identically to the agent.

Do agent calls share the same auth + access controls?

Yes. The MCP server authenticates with the same JWT or PAT a human session uses. Sharing rules, org membership, rate limits, suspicion bans - all of it applies. There's no "agent backdoor" that bypasses the access matrix.

Is there an audit trail for agent actions?

Yes. Every mutation goes through the same audit-log path as a UI click. The transport (UI / API / CLI / MCP) is recorded as channel metadata so you can filter "what did the agent do this hour" from your account history.

Can I rate-limit an agent separately from a human?

Per-token rate limits apply, so you can issue an agent its own PAT and cap it independently. The shared user-level bucket also caps total throughput, so a runaway loop can't drain your whole account. The CLI's auto-update channel marker means you can also see in audit which version is calling.

Does the MCP / API surface cost extra?

No. Same plan, same surface. We don't paywall the agent - it's the same product, the same schema, the same access gates. If a plan can do X in the UI, it can do X via MCP.

Contact Book

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Contact Book: the agent-friendly alternative to Apple Contacts

Same product, same surface for humans and AI agents. MCP server + CLI + drop-in clients in 15 languages.

Agentic alternative

Personal CRM

Apple

Julia YukovichCo-Founder + CEO

·March 16, 2026·

1 min read

Contact Book ships an MCP server you can wire into Claude Desktop or any MCP client in five lines. The same auth + access gates apply, the same audit log records every action, the same rate limits apply. Apple Contacts doesn't currently expose this surface - that's the gap.

At a glance

Apple Contacts is excellent at the phone-book job: end-to-end encrypted with Advanced Data Protection, beautifully integrated with Apple's stack, free with iCloud. Contact Book sits one layer above - the relationship log, life events, gifts, cadences. Run both: Apple holds the dialer-grade directory; we hold the texture.

Agent surface

What 'agent-friendly' actually means in practice

Contact Book ships an MCP server, a CLI, and drop-in clients in 15 languages. They're auto-generated from the same schema your UI uses; the auth, the access gates, the rate limits, the audit log all apply identically whether you're clicking buttons or calling the API. Apple Contacts doesn't currently expose this surface, which is the gap a serious agent integration trips over - the agent ends up scraping the UI through a browser, which is fragile, slow, and silently bypasses everything below.

Contact Book vs Apple Contacts: agent-readiness comparison

	Ours Contact Book	Theirs Apple Contacts
Names + numbers + email
End-to-end encrypted (with ADP)
Conversation log
Life events + reminders		Birthdays only
Gifts tracker
Family / relationship graph		Limited
Stay-in-touch cadence
Cross-platform (Android / web)
Free tier