User roles: ✔ Users with the MCP access role ✔ Application Administrator ✔ Integration Administrator
Keeping a board current takes a lot of small updates: raising a card from an email, moving it on when work starts, checking what is assigned to you, clearing finished cards away. If you already work in an AI app such as Claude or Microsoft Copilot, switching to Fluid for each one breaks your flow.
The Board Manager toolset lets the AI app do this work on your Fluid boards for you. You ask in plain language and the app chooses the tools: it finds a board, lists and filters its cards, creates cards, updates them, moves them between columns, sends them to the backlog and archives them. Every tool runs as you, so the app sees only the boards you can see and changes only what your board permissions allow. Fluid checks each change against the board's own columns, card types and custom properties, just as the board does.
In this article you will learn what you need before you start, what each Board Manager tool does, what Fluid checks when the app changes a card, and how to get good results.
Before You Start
Fluid has made MCP available on your site. If your administrator cannot find MCP Tools and Connected Apps in the Administration Console, contact Fluid support.
MCP access is on. An Application Administrator has turned on Enable MCP Access on the MCP Tools and Connected Apps page. See Managing Fluid AI Connectors (MCP) for Administrators.
You have access. You have the MCP access role, or you are an Application or Integration Administrator. While Administrators only (evaluation) is on, only administrators can connect.
Your AI app is connected to Fluid. See Connect AI apps to Fluid with MCP.
You allowed the right permissions when you connected.
Read boards and cards, and look people up is ticked by default. Every reading tool needs it.
Create, update, move, backlog and archive cards is not ticked by default. Tick it if you want the app to change cards. Without it, the app can read your boards but has none of the tools that change them.
You have access to the board. Board Viewers can read cards. To create, change, move, backlog or archive cards you need to be a Board Member or Board Owner. See Board Permissions.
Your administrator can also switch individual tools off for the whole site. If a tool in this article is missing from your app, check the permissions you allowed, then ask your administrator.
Every tool is listed, with its inputs and the permission it needs, in Fluid MCP (Connectors) Tools Definition.
Finding boards and people
Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
fluid_bm_find_boards | Finds boards by name and returns each one's columns. |
fluid_bm_get_board | Reads one board: its columns, and its card types (for example Task, Bug and Improvement) and which type is the default. The board's settings list these under Card Types, as Task Types. |
fluid_bm_get_property_definitions | Reads the board's custom property definitions: names, data types, options, whether each is required or holds several values, and whether the app can set it. Properties hidden from people who are not board members are left out for Board Viewers. The app reads this and fluid_bm_get_board before it creates, updates or filters cards, so it uses the board's own values. |
fluid_bm_find_person | Finds people by name, so the app can assign a card, or fill in a person property, with the right person. |
Example prompts
"Find the Platform Delivery board."
"What columns, card types and custom properties does the Client Requests board have?"
Reading cards
Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
fluid_bm_get_items | Lists the cards on a board. You can narrow the list to:
Each card comes back with its column, card type, priority, assignee, sprint, and when it was created and last changed. It can also return each card's custom property values. |
A few things to know when you filter:
Columns are matched by name. A column name the board doesn't have returns no cards rather than an error, so use the board's own column names.
Card types and custom properties are checked. An unknown card type or custom property is refused, and the app is given the valid ones.
Cards come back 50 at a time. The app pages through the rest.
A custom property filter checks at most 2,000 cards. On a bigger board, Fluid refuses the filter and asks the app to narrow it first, for example to uncompleted cards, one column or cards assigned to you.
Example prompts
"What's assigned to me on the Platform Delivery board that isn't finished?"
"List every Bug in the In Development column."
"Which cards are tagged for Train 18.3?"
"Summarise what's in the backlog, grouped by theme."
Creating and updating cards
Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
fluid_bm_create_item | Creates a card with a title and, optionally:
Without a card type, the card takes the board's default, just as the board's own create dialog does. Without a column, it goes into the board's starting column. If no sprint is given, the card follows the board's normal behaviour: it goes to the backlog, or to the active sprint on boards set to skip the backlog. There is no tool that lists a board's sprints. To put a card in a particular sprint, name a card that is already in it, and the app uses that card's sprint. |
fluid_bm_update_item | Changes only the fields you mention on an existing card, including the title, description, column, theme, priority, impediment, assignee, card type and custom properties. Everything else is left as it is. A change of column follows the board's column move restrictions, as fluid_bm_move_item does. Most AI apps ask you to confirm before they run this tool, because it can replace text such as the description. |
What Fluid checks, and what it matches
Refused, with the valid choices: an unknown column, card type, custom property or option value, a custom property the app can't set, and a value in the wrong form for its property, such as text in a number property or a date Fluid can't read. When something is refused, nothing is saved: a refused card is not created, and a refused update changes nothing.
Matched to the nearest person: the assignee. Fluid looks for the exact name first, then the closest match. If more than one person could match, ask the app to look them up with fluid_bm_find_person and confirm with you first.
Stored as given: theme and priority are not checked against a list. Use the board's own values, for example High rather than P1.
The response shows what was actually stored, including the custom property values, so the app can check the change landed as intended. Check the assignee in particular.
Custom properties the app can set
The app can set these custom property types: text and long text, rich text, hyperlink, option, valued option, multi-option, yes/no, number, percentage, date, date and time, and person, multi-person, project and multi-project.
For a person or project property, the app uses the person's or project's ID, which it looks up first (people with fluid_bm_find_person). A project must be one you can see.
These stay read-only: cascading, calculated, table, document and catalog properties, and any property whose settings make it read-only for you. fluid_bm_get_property_definitions tells the app which properties it can set.
Example prompts
"Create a Bug on Platform Delivery: 'Export to Excel drops rows with ampersands in the name'. Priority High, assign to Sam Patel, set Train to Train 18.3."
"Add a card to review the Q4 capacity plan, in the same sprint as the Excel export bug, and put it in In Development."
"Change the priority of the Excel export bug to Medium and set Affected Clients to FP&A and Operations (EU + UK)."
"Set Business Owner on that card to Alex Chen."
"Add a note to the end of that card's description saying the fix is in review. Keep what's already there."
Card descriptions: updating a description replaces it. Cards raised from client requests often hold the original report and screenshots, so ask the app to add to the description rather than rewrite it. The app reads the card first and appends the new text.
Moving, backlogging and archiving
Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
fluid_bm_move_item | Moves a card to another of the board's columns. The board's column move restrictions apply, just as they do when you drag the card: a move the card's current column doesn't allow is refused, and the app is told both columns. Board Owners can move a card to any column. On a benefit approval board, only Board Members and Board Owners can move a card into a column that approves or rejects the benefit. |
fluid_bm_backlog_item | Takes a card out of its sprint and sends it to the backlog. The backlog isn't a column, so move restrictions don't apply. |
fluid_bm_archive_item | Archives a card, taking it off the board. Archive isn't a column, so move restrictions don't apply. You can still list archived cards, and an archived card can be restored in Fluid. There is no tool to restore one, so do that in Fluid. |
Example prompts
"Move the Excel export bug to Testing."
"Send every card in Sprint 14 that is still Not Started back to the backlog."
"List the cards in Done that haven't changed for a month, then archive them once I've checked the list." Cards don't carry the date they were completed, so the app goes by when each card last changed.
Tips for good results
Name the board in the prompt the first time. The app remembers it for the rest of the conversation.
For bulk changes, ask for a list first, then confirm. For example: "List them, then wait for me to say go."
Use the board's own names for columns, card types and options. They can contain commas, ampersands and brackets, and they are matched in full.
Name people clearly. Use a full name, and ask the app to confirm the person before it assigns a card.
Good to Know
Changes are made as you. A card the app changes shows you as the person who changed it.
Results come in pages. Card lists come back 50 cards at a time. Board and people searches return up to 50 matches each.
Can't find a board you know exists? Ask the app to search again with more of the board's name.
Backlog and archive are never restricted. Column move restrictions only apply to moves between columns.
No tool deletes a card. The most the app can do is archive it, which you can undo in Fluid.