We just shipped Box Tasks support to the community edition MCP server. If you’re building workflows that involve people reviewing or approving stuff in Box, this has immediate application.
Why this actually matters
Most document workflows have humans in them somewhere. Someone needs to review a contract, approve a design, or verify data before the next step happens. Box Tasks give you a structured way to handle that “wait for a human” part without building your own tracking system or spamming people with emails.
The MCP integration means your Box AI Agents can create tasks, assign them to people, and check if they’re done. That’s it. No magic, just a cleaner way to coordinate human and automated work around files.
Triggering tasks for your users over a Box document opens up practical use cases in workflow automation, even if the workflows themselves run outside of Box. You get a standardized API for “hey, can you look at this file and tell me X” that works whether you’re building a Python script, a Claude agent, or anything else.
What you can build
Here are just some real world scenarios.
Contract reviews where AI does the first pass: Your agent scans uploaded contracts, pulls out the weird clauses, then assigns review tasks to your legal team with “hey, check section 4.2, this termination clause is different from our standard.”
Approval chains that actually make sense: Upload a design, the agent checks if it’s the right format and size, then creates approval tasks for whoever needs to sign off based on the project budget or content type you’ve defined.
Fixing documentation without meetings: The agent finds broken links, outdated screenshots, or missing sections in your docs, then assigns specific fix-it tasks to the authors with context about what’s wrong.
Onboarding that doesn’t fall through the cracks: New hire docs go into Box, then the agent creates a checklist of review tasks for HR, IT, and managers. Everyone knows what they need to do. The agent knows when it’s done.
Invoice approvals with context: The agent reads invoices, matches them against POs, flags anything weird, and sends approval tasks to the right budget owner with the variance highlighted.
Box Tasks: The basics
Box Tasks let you ask collaborators to review files or complete work. They’re built into Box, so people see them in the web UI and mobile apps without installing anything extra. Learn more in Box’s Adding Comments and Tasks support doc.
Task types
Box has two task types:
- Review task : Needs explicit approval/rejection. States: incomplete , approved , rejected
- Completion task : Just needs to get done. States: incomplete , complete
Review tasks give users approve/reject buttons. Complete tasks give a single “mark as done” button. Pick the one that matches what you’re asking people to do.
Completion rules
If you assign a task to multiple people, the completion_rule says whether everyone needs to complete it (all_assignees) or just one person (any_assignee).
- all_assignees — Everyone must sign off. Use for compliance, legal reviews, anything where you need consensus.
- any_assignee — First person to respond closes it. Use for support queues, general reviews, or when any qualified person can handle it.
For more information:Box Developer Docs — Tasks
Tools added
The update adds comprehensive task management through these functions:
Creating tasks
box_task_review_create — Create a review task where the assignee needs to review the file and approve or reject it. These tasks show up in Box with approve/reject buttons.
box_task_complete_create — Create a completion task where the assignee just needs to mark it done. Simple checkbox-style tasks that show up with a complete button.
Both support optional due dates, custom messages, and completion rules for whether all assignees or just one needs to complete it.
Managing tasks
box_task_file_list — List all tasks associated with a specific file. Returns all tasks or a message if none exist.
box_task_details — Get the details of a specific task including its status, assignees, and metadata.
box_task_update — Update task details like due dates, messages, or completion rules after creation.
box_task_remove — Delete a task when it's no longer needed.
Assigning tasks
box_task_assign_by_user_id — Assign a task to someone using their Box user ID. Useful when you already know who you're working with.
box_task_assign_by_email — Assign a task to someone by their email address. Easier when you're routing based on email lists or external systems.
Managing assignments
box_task_assignments_list — See all assignments for a task. Useful when multiple people are assigned and you need to check status.
box_task_assignment_details — Get details on a specific assignment including who it's assigned to and their response.
box_task_assignment_update — Mark an assignment as approved, rejected, or completed. The function is smart enough to figure out the right state based on the task type — for review tasks you can approve or reject, for complete tasks you mark them done.
box_task_assignment_remove — Remove a specific assignment from a task.
Quick demo
Our starting point is the2025 DORA report, placed neatly on a folder, and shared with my colleague Olga.
Let’s see if Claude can locate the folder and list its content:
Creating a task for myself:
Looking in Box, this is what we get:
Let’s go ahead and approve it:
Checking back in Box:
Now I need to ask my colleague Olga to research how these learnings can be applied to our team.
Notice how Claude had to figure out who Olga was in my Box instance. You can also assign tasks to users based on the login email.
Let’s try that:
Finally let’s get a list of tasks for this document:
As you can see from the demo, the integration is straightforward . Claude creates tasks through natural conversation, and they immediately show up in Box, where your team is already working. No context switching, no new tools to learn, just tasks that appear right where people expect them. The same workflow works whether you’re using Claude, building custom agents, or scripting your own automation.
Start using it
Check the code:
- Tool implementation: box_tools_tasks.py
- API wrapper: box_api_tasks.py
The Box Community MCP server is open source. Fork it, extend it, break it, fix it, whatever works for your setup.
