Orchard

Orchard exposes 52 Apple-app tools (Calendar, Reminders, Mail, Notes, Messages, Music, Weather, Contacts, Clock, Location/Maps, Shortcuts) through one running Orchard.app, reachable over two transports that carry the same tool set. Default to the CLI. Read "Which Channel" below first — it costs you nothing to check and prevents wasted turns.

Which Channel

Decide by looking at your own tool list first. Having a Bash tool is NOT enough to prove you can reach the CLI — sandboxed agents (e.g. Claude Cowork) have a Bash that runs inside an isolated Linux VM where the macOS CLI does not exist, while Orchard's MCP tools are still bridged in by the host.

• You have a Bash/shell tool (Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, or any terminal-capable agent — the large majority of sessions) → try the CLI first. Continue to "Quick Start" below. It is cheaper than MCP (this file plus one on-demand reference beats preloading 52 MCP schemas), and it self-documents via --help.
• You have no Bash/shell tool at all → skip straight to references/mcp-tools.md and call the Orchard MCP tools (names ending in __calendar_info, __mail_read, etc.) directly. "Quick Start", "Known Pitfalls", and "Common Workflows" below are written for the CLI and do not apply to you. "Core Rules" still applies — read it, it describes the tools, not the transport.

If you have Bash but scripts/resolve-orchard.sh --route reports missing_app, check your tool list for Orchard MCP tools before concluding anything:

• Orchard MCP tools ARE in your tool list → your shell is sandboxed away from the user's Mac (Claude Cowork's Linux VM is the typical case), but the host has bridged Orchard's MCP server in. Switch to the MCP channel: read references/mcp-tools.md and use those tools. Do not tell the user anything is broken — nothing is.
• No Orchard MCP tools either → Orchard.app genuinely isn't installed or running on this Mac. Stop and tell the user to install/launch Orchard.app. Do not hunt further — every channel proxies to that same app.

Quick Start (CLI)

Resolve the CLI path first, then call that path for every command.