Ask Claude what you ate: PlateLens is now an MCP server
Your food diary has been answering one question at a time, in one app. It can now answer questions somewhere else — inside an AI assistant you already use. PlateLens speaks the Model Context Protocol, so Claude can read your nutrition, activity and weight history and reason about it. Read-only, permission by permission, and revocable in one tap.
What this actually lets you do
Once connected, you can ask an assistant the sort of question that used to mean scrolling a month of entries by hand:
- "My protein has been low on weekdays. Which meals are dragging it down?"
- "Compare my average intake in the two weeks before and after I changed my target."
- "I logged 1,900 kcal yesterday. What did that consist of, and how does it sit against my plan?"
- "Has my weight trend actually moved this quarter, or is it noise?"
The assistant is not guessing from what you tell it. It is reading your real diary — the same numbers the app shows — and doing the arithmetic and the pattern-finding on top.
What it can read, exactly
There are eight tools and no ninth. There is deliberately no general-purpose "query my data" tool, because a catch-all is a boundary nobody can describe to the person being asked to approve it.
| Tool | Reads | Maximum range |
|---|---|---|
get_profile_targets | Goal, activity level, units, calorie and macro targets, hydration and step goals, stored BMR/TDEE estimate, target weight | Current state |
get_daily_nutrition_summary | One day's nutrition, hydration, activity, exercise, targets and what is left | 1 day |
list_meals | Completed meal summaries, optionally filtered by meal type | 31 days, 50 per page |
get_meal | One meal: nutrition, portion, micronutrients, ingredients | 1 meal |
get_nutrition_trend | Daily nutrition metrics, averages and current targets | 90 days |
get_activity_summary | Device activity and manual exercise, kept distinct | 90 days |
get_weight_trend | Weight and optional body fat — without progress photos or notes | 365 days |
get_energy_balance | Intake, estimated expenditure, deficit or surplus, plan adherence and coverage | One named period, anchored to a date |
Four things it cannot do
The boundary is worth stating as plainly as the capability, because "connect your health data to an AI" is a sentence that deserves suspicion.
- It cannot write anything. Every tool is read-only. An assistant cannot log a meal, change a target, edit an entry or delete a day.
- It cannot read your photos or your notes. Meal photos and progress photos are not exposed, and the weight tool returns the trend without the notes attached to it.
- It cannot see more than you granted. Nutrition, activity, weight and profile are four separate scopes, approved individually at connection time.
- It cannot outlive your permission. Revoking is immediate and checked on every request, including before any token refresh.
How to connect it
- In your assistant, add a custom connector pointing at
https://mcp.platelens.app/mcp. - You will be sent to auth.platelens.app to sign in with the same Google or Apple account you use in PlateLens.
- Approve the scopes you actually want. Granting fewer is a supported choice, not a degraded one — a connection with only
nutrition.readworks fine and simply answers less.
Connections are standard OAuth 2.0 with PKCE. PlateLens never sees your Google or Apple password, and the assistant never sees your PlateLens credentials.
How to disconnect it
Two places, either one is enough: More → Preferences → Connected Apps in the mobile app, or auth.platelens.app in a browser. Each connection is listed separately and revoked on its own, so disconnecting an assistant never touches your PlateLens login.
Deleting your PlateLens account removes these authorizations too, as part of the same erasure — not as a follow-up you have to remember.
Why we built it as MCP rather than an API key
An API key is a single secret that grants everything the account can do, forever, to whoever holds it. It cannot express "read my nutrition but not my weight", it cannot be revoked for one assistant without breaking the rest, and pasting one into a chat window is how a credential ends up somewhere nobody intended.
MCP with OAuth gives the properties this data deserves: scopes you approve individually, a grant per connection, revocation that is immediate and independent, and no long-lived secret you have to handle yourself. The full capability and data boundary is on the PlateLens MCP page.
Connect your diary to your assistant
Available to every active PlateLens account. Read-only, scope by scope, revocable in one tap.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does PlateLens have an MCP server?
Yes. The PlateLens MCP server is at https://mcp.platelens.app/mcp, with OAuth 2.0 authorization at https://auth.platelens.app. It exposes eight read-only tools covering nutrition, meals, activity, weight, profile targets and energy balance.
Can an AI assistant change my food diary through MCP?
No. Every tool is read-only. An assistant can read your logged data but cannot log a meal, edit an entry, change a target or delete anything.
What data does the PlateLens MCP server not expose?
Meal photos and progress photos are not exposed, and the weight tool returns the trend without the notes attached to it. There is also no general-purpose query tool — only the eight specific ones.
How do I disconnect an assistant from PlateLens?
Either in the app under More → Preferences → Connected Apps, or at auth.platelens.app in a browser. Each connection is revoked on its own, and revocation is checked on every request, including before a token refresh. Disconnecting never affects your PlateLens login.
Do I need a paid plan to use the MCP server?
No. It is available to every active PlateLens account. See the pricing page for what the free plan includes.