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Philip D'Souza
Philip D'Souza

Posted on Originally published at healthexport.dev

Connect Apple Health to opencode: Native MCP Setup

#ai #llm #mcp #privacy

This walks through the exact config, the two values you type twice, and the tool-scoping glob that keeps 16 health tools out of your coding context until you actually ask for them.

The config 

{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "mcp": {
    "health-export": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["npx", "-y", "health-export-mcp"],
      "enabled": true,
      "environment": {
        "HEALTH_DATA_DIR": "/Users/you/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~ai~healthexport~app/Documents"
      }
    }
  }
}
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type and command are required for a local server, and command is an array, not a shell string, so you cannot chain with &&. HEALTH_DATA_DIR points at the folder holding your .health-cache.json. The server reads that local file and makes zero runtime network calls, so nothing leaves the machine.

Scoping the tools

opencode registers each server's tools with the server name as a prefix, so health-export becomes health_export_get_trends, health_export_compare_periods, and so on. That prefix is the handle for globs. If you use opencode for real code work, disable the health tools globally and switch them on for one agent:

"tools": { "health_export_*": false },
"agent": { "health": { "tools": { "health_export_*": true } } }
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Verify and query

From the config directory:

$ opencode mcp list
health-export  local  connected  16 tools
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If it says disconnected, it is almost always npx missing from the PATH the TUI inherited. Then ask something real, naming the server so intent is unambiguous: "use the health-export server to call get_trends on resting heart rate over 14 days."

On-device vs cloud

The architectures differ in where the computation happens, not how nice the chart looks. In a cloud health AI, the answer is computed on the vendor's servers because that is where the model lives, and an account is usually required to bill a tenant. With a local MCP bridge, the answer is computed on your iPhone for in-app questions and on your own machine for agent queries, the vendor's servers never hold the rows, and there is no account. The MCP surface is open source and read-only, so the same data can feed opencode, Claude, Cursor, or whatever you run next.

Full setup guide, with the pairing option and timeout details: https://www.healthexport.dev/blog/connect-apple-health-to-opencode-mcp

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