# monday.com vs Shortcut

> monday.com scores 76.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Shortcut's 60.2 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do tasks create. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-shortcut
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-shortcut.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-shortcut.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-shortcut.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

monday.com scores 76.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Shortcut's 60.2 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do tasks create.

- monday.com: grade BB, 76.4/100, rank #32 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/monday.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/monday.json
- Shortcut: grade C, 60.2/100, rank #411 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/shortcut.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/shortcut.json

## Which one, for what

### monday.com (BB)

Good for: Teams that already run projects on monday.com boards and want an agent to create items, change status, post updates and read board summaries through MCP or GraphQL.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 79 against 64
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 75
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 57
- Security & auth, 70 against 54
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 73
- Transparency & trust, 80 against 73

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: Personal API tokens have no scopes. Each carries every permission its user has in the app

### Shortcut (C)

Good for: Software teams already on Shortcut that want an agent to search, create and update stories, epics, iterations and docs, and coding agents that pick up assigned stories.

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: The v3 docs still allow the API token as a `token` query parameter, marked deprecated with no removal date


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | monday.com | Shortcut | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 79 | 64 | monday.com +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 75 | monday.com +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 57 | monday.com +25 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 70 | 54 | monday.com +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 30 | monday.com +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 73 | monday.com +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 73 | monday.com +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **76.4 · BB** | **60.2 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | monday.com | Shortcut |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | monday.com Ltd. | Shortcut Software Company |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.monday.com/v2` | `https://api.app.shortcut.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under monday.com's Terms of Service and Developer Terms. The MCP server, agent toolkit and API SDK on GitHub are MIT | Proprietary service under Shortcut's terms of service. The JavaScript client and the archived MCP server on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 64 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `com.monday/monday.com` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-22 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-05-05 | 2025-09-18 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2025-07-11 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 176k npm/wk | 142 stars, 103k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**monday.com.** The GraphQL API publishes its full schema, accepts an `Idempotency-Key` header on mutations and reports limits in `RateLimit` headers, and a documented signup API lets an agent create its own account and token. Personal tokens carry every permission their user has, daily calls stop at 1,000 below Pro, and the status page shows two long platform incidents since July 2026.

**Shortcut.** REST API v3 and the hosted MCP server are included on the Free plan, with downloadable OpenAPI files and OAuth scopes down to story or comment writes on the MCP side. The API still accepts the token in a query string, and no idempotency keys, Retry-After header, uptime SLA or API changelog were found in the reviewed documentation.

## Before you call either

### monday.com

1. Send an `API-Version` header such as 2026-10 on every call. Without it the API uses whichever version is current
2. Read the board's columns first (`get_board_info` or `boards { columns }`), then write column values as a JSON string keyed by column ID
3. Reuse one `Idempotency-Key` per mutation when retrying after a timeout or 5xx. After a 429, wait for `Retry-After` or `retry_in_seconds`
4. Page items with `items_page` and `next_items_page`, at most 500 a page. Cursors expire after 60 minutes
5. For a narrower grant than a personal token, connect MCP through a custom OAuth app with only scopes such as `boards:read`

### Shortcut

1. Send the v3 token in the `Shortcut-Token` header. v4 (alpha) takes `Authorization: Bearer` with `sct_ro_` or `sct_rw_` tokens, and v3 tokens don't work there.
2. Create a story with `name` and `workflow_state_id`. Sending both `workflow_state_id` and `project_id`, or neither, is rejected.
3. Use `GET /api/v3/search/stories` with `detail=slim`, `page_size` (1 to 250) and the `next` token. Many other v3 list endpoints return every record at once.
4. Stay under 200 requests a minute and add your own backoff on 429, because no Retry-After header is documented.
5. For MCP, connect to https://mcp.shortcut.com/mcp and request only the scopes needed, such as `read` or `story-write`.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, monday.com or Shortcut?

monday.com scores 76.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Shortcut's 60.2 (C), and leads in every scored category.

### Do monday.com and Shortcut need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call monday.com and Shortcut without installing anything?

Yes. monday.com has a hosted endpoint at https://api.monday.com/v2 and Shortcut at https://api.app.shortcut.com.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-shortcut.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-shortcut.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "monday", "b": "shortcut"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare monday shortcut`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/monday.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/shortcut.json

## Other comparisons with monday.com or Shortcut

- [Asana vs monday.com](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asana-vs-monday.md)
- [Asana vs Shortcut](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asana-vs-shortcut.md)
- [Basecamp vs monday.com](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basecamp-vs-monday.md)
- [Basecamp vs Shortcut](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basecamp-vs-shortcut.md)
- [ClickUp vs monday.com](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-monday.md)
- [ClickUp vs Shortcut](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-shortcut.md)
- [monday.com vs Plane](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-plane.md)
- [monday.com vs Roma](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-roma.md)
- [monday.com vs Teamwork.com](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-teamwork.md)
- [monday.com vs Todoist](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-todoist.md)
- [monday.com vs Trello](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-trello.md)
- [monday.com vs Wrike](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-wrike.md)
- [monday.com vs YouTrack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-youtrack.md)
- [Plane vs Shortcut](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/plane-vs-shortcut.md)
- [Roma vs Shortcut](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/roma-vs-shortcut.md)
- [Shortcut vs Teamwork.com](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/shortcut-vs-teamwork.md)
- [Shortcut vs Todoist](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/shortcut-vs-todoist.md)
- [Shortcut vs Trello](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/shortcut-vs-trello.md)
- [Shortcut vs Wrike](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/shortcut-vs-wrike.md)
- [Shortcut vs YouTrack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/shortcut-vs-youtrack.md)