Automate Trello with Clawdbot: Managing Boards, Lists, and Cards from the Command Line

Managing project tasks across multiple Trello boards can be tedious. Constantly switching between your chat and browser, clicking through the UI just to move a card or add a quick note... there has to be a better way.

Enter the Trello skill from ClawdHub. This skill gives your Clawdbot agent direct access to the Trello REST API, enabling you to list boards, create cards, move tasks between lists, and add comments—all without leaving your terminal or chat interface.

Who Is This For?

This skill is perfect for:

• Teams using Trello for project management who want to update cards via voice or chat
• Developers who want to automate task creation from CI/CD pipelines or scripts
• Power users who prefer keyboard-driven workflows over clicking through the Trello UI
• Anyone building agent-powered automation that needs Trello integration

Installation

Installing the Trello skill is straightforward:

npx clawdhub@latest install trello

The skill requires jq for JSON parsing, which you likely already have. If not:

# macOS
brew install jq

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install jq

Configuration

Before using the skill, you need to set up your Trello API credentials:

1. Get your API key: Visit trello.com/app-key and copy your API key
2. Generate a token: Click the "Token" link on that page and authorize the app
3. Set environment variables:

export TRELLO_API_KEY="your-api-key"
export TRELLO_TOKEN="your-token"

For persistence, add these to your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, etc.) or use a secrets manager.

⚠️ Security note: These credentials provide full access to your Trello account. Never commit them to version control or share them publicly.

Usage Examples

The skill uses curl to interact with the Trello REST API. Here are practical examples:

Example 1: Quick board overview

See all your boards at a glance:

curl -s "https://api.trello.com/1/members/me/boards?key=$TRELLO_API_KEY&token=$TRELLO_TOKEN" \
  | jq '.[] | select(.name | contains("Sprint"))'

This returns each board with its name and ID—you will need the ID for subsequent commands.

Example 2: Create a card from the command line

Spotted a bug during a code review? Create a card instantly:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.trello.com/1/cards?key=$TRELLO_API_KEY&token=$TRELLO_TOKEN" \
  -d "idList={your-list-id}" \
  -d "name=Fix login redirect bug" \
  -d "desc=Users are redirected to 404 after OAuth login"

Example 3: Move a card to Done

Task completed? Move it without opening Trello:

curl -s -X PUT "https://api.trello.com/1/cards/{cardId}?key=$TRELLO_API_KEY&token=$TRELLO_TOKEN" \
  -d "idList={done-list-id}"

Example 4: Add a comment with context

Leave a note on a card from your terminal:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.trello.com/1/cards/{cardId}/actions/comments?key=$TRELLO_API_KEY&token=$TRELLO_TOKEN" \
  -d "text=Deployed to staging. Ready for QA."

Tips and Best Practices

Finding IDs: Board, list, and card IDs appear in Trello URLs. Open any card and look at the URL—the ID is the alphanumeric string after /c/.

Search for boards by name: Use jq filtering to find specific boards:

curl -s "https://api.trello.com/1/members/me/boards?key=$TRELLO_API_KEY&token=$TRELLO_TOKEN" \
  | jq '.[] | select(.name | contains("Sprint"))'

Rate limits: Trello allows 300 requests per 10 seconds per API key, and 100 per token. For heavy automation, batch your operations.

Combine with Clawdbot: Once installed, your agent can create cards from chat messages like "Add a task to the backlog: implement dark mode" or "What cards are in my In Progress list?"

Conclusion

The Trello skill transforms your Clawdbot into a powerful project management assistant. No more context-switching between chat and browser—just tell your agent what you need, and it handles the API calls.

Install it today:

npx clawdhub@latest install trello

Links:

• Trello skill on ClawdHub
• Trello API Documentation
• ClawdHub