Notebook MCP Server

A simple Model Context Protocol server for creating notebooks and notes with tags and full-text search. Notes are stored in a single SQLite database with an FTS5 index for search — no external services required.

Tools

Tool	Description
create_notebook	Create a notebook (name, optional description).
create_note	Add a note to a notebook (notebook, title, content, optional tags).
read_note	Read a full note by note_id.
update_note	Update a note's title, content, and/or tags (only provided fields change).
search_notes	Full-text search over titles, content, and tags; filter by notebook and/or tag. Supports FTS5 syntax (AND, OR, NOT, "exact phrase", prefix*); queries that aren't valid FTS5 syntax (e.g. e-mail) are matched as literal words instead.

Errors (duplicate notebook, missing note, invalid arguments) are raised as exceptions, so MCP clients receive them as proper tool errors (isError), not as text that looks like a successful result.

Quick start (no clone needed)

The only prerequisite is uv. The commands below are copy-pasteable as-is — no paths to edit.

Claude Code:

claude mcp add notebook -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/lucidbard/notebook-mcp-server notebook-mcp

Claude Desktop — add to claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config), then restart the app:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "notebook": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "git+https://github.com/lucidbard/notebook-mcp-server", "notebook-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Try it

Ask your client something like:

Create a notebook called "ideas", then save a note in it titled "Search UX" tagged ux and search, with a few thoughts on query autocomplete.

Then later:

Search my notes for anything about autocomplete.

The model will call create_notebook, create_note, and search_notes for you.

Where your notes live

All data is one SQLite file at ~/.notebook-mcp/notebook.db (created on first run). Back up that file to back up your notes; delete it to start fresh. Set the NOTEBOOK_DB environment variable to use a different location — handy for keeping separate databases per project.

Installing from a clone

If you'd rather not run from GitHub directly (Python 3.10+ required):

git clone https://github.com/lucidbard/notebook-mcp-server.git
cd notebook-mcp-server
pip install .
claude mcp add notebook -- notebook-mcp

pip install . puts a notebook-mcp command on your PATH, so the client config never needs a file path. (If you do point a client at the script directly, use the absolute path to notebook_server.py — placeholder paths like /path/to/... fail to connect, and Git Bash silently rewrites them into C:/Program Files/Git/... on Windows.)

Development

pip install -r requirements.txt
python notebook_server.py                    # run the server (MCP over stdio)
python test_fixes.py                         # tool, error-path, and search tests
python stdio_test.py                         # end-to-end test over MCP stdio
python stdio_test.py uvx --from . notebook-mcp   # same, against the packaged install

Both test scripts use a throwaway temporary database — they never touch ~/.notebook-mcp/notebook.db.