Pear — iCloud Integration

Pear provides read/write access to iCloud Calendar, Reminders, and Contacts through 27 MCP tools. All tools are prefixed with pear_ and communicate with iCloud via CalDAV/CardDAV protocols.

When to Use

Activate this skill when the user wants to:

• Check their schedule, upcoming events, or daily agenda
• Create, update, or delete calendar events
• Manage reminders or to-do lists
• Look up, create, or update contacts
• Find free time slots or schedule meetings
• Get a daily briefing of events and tasks
• Check availability for a specific time
• Work with contact groups
• Perform bulk operations on events, reminders, or contacts

Activation triggers:

• "What's on my calendar", "my schedule", "upcoming events"
• "Remind me to", "add a reminder", "my tasks", "to-do"
• "Find contact", "add a contact", "phone number for"
• "Schedule a meeting", "find a time", "when am I free"
• "Daily briefing", "what's today look like"
• "Birthday", "anniversaries"

Do NOT activate for:

• Apple Notes (not supported — CalDAV only)
• Apple Mail or iMessage
• iCloud Drive or file storage
• Apple Music, Photos, or other non-PIM services
• Local macOS Calendar.app scripting (Pear works cross-platform via API)

Prerequisites

Required Environment Variable:

• PEAR_API_KEY — Your Pear API key (format: pear_sk_...)
  • Sign up at pearmcp.com
  • Generate an API key from the dashboard
  • Connect your iCloud account (requires an app-specific password)

Optional:

• PEAR_MCP_URL — Custom endpoint URL (defaults to https://pearmcp.com/api/mcp)

Tool Reference

Events (8 tools)

Reminders (4 tools)

Contacts (9 tools)

Briefing (1 tool)

Scheduling (1 tool)

Batch Operations (4 tools)

Workflow Guidelines

Dates and Times

• Always use ISO 8601 format: 2025-06-15T14:30:00Z or 2025-06-15T14:30:00+10:00
• Timezone parameter: Pass timezone (IANA format like America/New_York or Australia/Sydney) for user-friendly display times
• All-day events: Set isAllDay: true and use date-only format 2025-06-15
• Date ranges: pear_list_events requires a timeRange object: { start: "...", end: "..." }

Creating Events

When creating events, follow this pattern:

1. If the user doesn't specify a calendar, omit calendarName — Pear auto-selects the default
2. For recurring events, use the recurrence object: { frequency: "WEEKLY", interval: 1, count: 10 }
3. For attendees, you can pass names — Pear resolves them against the user's contacts automatically
4. Use idempotencyKey when retrying to prevent duplicate events
5. Alarms use minutes before: { action: "display", trigger: 15 } for a 15-minute reminder

Finding Meeting Times

For scheduling, prefer pear_find_best_time over pear_find_free_slots:

• pear_find_best_time returns AI-scored slots considering work hours, preferences, and existing commitments
• Pass preferences to customize: { timeOfDay: "morning", focusTime: true, workHoursStart: 9, workHoursEnd: 17 }
• pear_find_free_slots is simpler — just returns raw available slots without scoring

Reminders

• Reminders are accessed via CalDAV (VTODO protocol) — basic operations work well (title, due date, priority, notes, completion). Modern Apple Reminders features like subtasks, tags, smart lists, and location-based reminders are not available via CalDAV.
• Priority values: 1 = high, 5 = medium, 9 = low, 0 = none
• To list only incomplete reminders, use includeCompleted: false (default)
• Reminder lists are auto-created if they don't exist when using listName

Contacts

• pear_update_contact merges fields — it won't erase data you don't include in the update
• Birthday format: YYYY-MM-DD for full date, --MM-DD for year-unknown
• Phone/email can be a single string or an array for multiple entries
• Contact photos accept Base64 or data URI format

Virtual Birthdays

Pear generates all-day birthday events from contact birthday fields. These appear as events on a "Birthdays" calendar when listing events. This is a synthesized feature — Apple's native Birthdays calendar is not exposed via CalDAV.

Daily Briefing

pear_get_daily_briefing is the most efficient way to give the user an overview:

• Returns today's events + pending reminders in a single call
• Automatically enriches event attendees with contact details (name, email, phone)
• Pass timezone for correct day boundaries
• Pass date to get a briefing for a different day

Safety & Confirmation

Actions Requiring Care

Data Safety

• Read operations are always safe — listing, searching, and briefings have no side effects
• Updates merge, not replace — pear_update_contact preserves fields you don't mention
• Batch operations are rate-limited — chunks of 5 with 200ms delays, no need to throttle manually
• Never expose the user's PEAR_API_KEY — treat it as a secret

Error Handling

Common Patterns

Error Recovery (Idempotency)

Event creation failed mid-request or timed out:
→ Retry pear_create_event with the same idempotencyKey
→ Pear deduplicates — no double-booking even if the first request succeeded silently

Morning Briefing

User: "What's on my plate today?"
→ Call pear_get_daily_briefing with timezone
→ Summarize events chronologically, then pending reminders

Schedule a Meeting

User: "Find time for a 1-hour meeting this week"
→ Call pear_find_best_time with durationMinutes: 60 and this week's range
→ Present top 3 options with scores
→ On user selection, call pear_create_event

Quick Reminder

User: "Remind me to call the dentist tomorrow"
→ Call pear_create_reminder with title and dueDate set to tomorrow

Contact Lookup

User: "What's Sarah's phone number?"
→ Call pear_search_contacts with query: "Sarah"
→ Return matching contacts with phone numbers

Bulk Event Creation

User: "Add these 5 meetings to my calendar"
→ Call pear_create_events_batch with all events in one request
→ Summarize results (created count, any failures)

References

• Pear Documentation
• Apple App-Specific Passwords
• CalDAV Protocol (RFC 4791)
• CardDAV Protocol (RFC 6352)
• IANA Timezone Database