MCP server bridges handwritten iPad journal with Claude
u/hermjohnson built an MCP server that lets Claude OCR and search a handwritten Apple Pencil journal, then write typed reminders back onto the current page.
Score breakdown
The project demonstrates a concrete read-and-write-back loop between a handwriting-based personal journal and an AI agent via MCP, without altering the user's original ink.
- 01Built by u/hermjohnson as a solo maker project for iPad + Apple Pencil journals
- 02A vision model OCRs each journal page into structured tasks and notes
- 03The MCP server exposes five tools: `search_pages`, `get_page`, `list_tasks`, `create_task_seed`, and `update_task`
u/hermjohnson, a solo maker, built an MCP server on top of an iPad handwriting journal (Apple Pencil) that allows Claude to read past entries and write typed content back onto the current page. The system uses a vision model to OCR each journal page into structured tasks and notes, which the MCP server then exposes through five tools: `search_pages`, `get_page`, `list_tasks`, `create_task_seed`, and `update_task`.
In the example shared with screenshots, the user asked Claude what they had written about a birthday gift for their uncle.
In the example shared with screenshots, the user asked Claude what they had written about a birthday gift for their uncle. Claude searched the journal, surfaced the handwritten note — "Idea for uncle Ken: he said he's footloose. New shoes?" — and when the user followed up with "add a task to buy those," Claude wrote "Buy Uncle Ken new shoes for his birthday" as a typed block directly onto today's journal page, visibly sitting above the user's own handwriting.
A key design decision is that the original handwriting is never altered: agents read only from the structured OCR output and write only typed blocks, avoiding any merge conflicts with the ink layer. The post is a solo-maker disclosure, with setup instructions and a link shared in the comments.
Key facts
- 01Built by u/hermjohnson as a solo maker project for iPad + Apple Pencil journals
- 02A vision model OCRs each journal page into structured tasks and notes
- 03The MCP server exposes five tools: `search_pages`, `get_page`, `list_tasks`, `create_task_seed`, and `update_task`
- 04Claude can search past handwritten entries and write typed blocks back onto the current page
- 05Original handwriting is never modified — agents only read structured data and write typed blocks
- 06Live demo: Claude found a handwritten birthday gift idea and added a typed follow-up task to today's page
Topics
Summary and scoring are generated automatically from the original article. We always link back to the publisher and never republish images or paywalled content. Last processed Jun 11, 2026 · 08:34 UTC. How this works →