NotesBridge

NotesBridge

MCP server enabling ChatGPT to search, read, and write Apple Notes via a local Mac agent with a privacy-preserving relay.

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README

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πŸ“ NotesBridge

Use your Apple Notes from ChatGPT β€” search, read, and write, powered by your own Mac.

License: MIT npm

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NotesBridge is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) connector that lets ChatGPT work with your Apple Notes. It never uploads your notes to a third party β€” every action runs on your own Mac through a tiny local agent. The cloud piece is only a stateless relay that shuttles requests between ChatGPT and your Mac.

  ChatGPT  ──OAuth──►  NotesBridge relay  ──job queue──►  apple-notes-agent  ──►  Apple Notes.app
 (connector)          (Vercel, stateless)   (your Mac, polls & executes)         (on your Mac)

Your Mac is the only place your notes are ever read or written. The relay stores only short-lived job payloads and your account record; it never sees a note unless a job is in flight, and jobs expire in seconds.


For users β€” 3 steps

1. Create your account at notesbridge.vercel.app and generate a pairing code.

2. Install the Mac agent (needs Node 18+):

npx apple-notes-agent pair <YOUR-CODE>   # link this Mac to your account
npx apple-notes-agent install            # keep it running on every restart

The first time it touches Notes, macOS asks "Terminal wants to control Notes" β€” click OK (one time).

3. Connect ChatGPT: Settings β†’ Plugins β†’ turn on Developer mode (Security & login) β†’ Create a custom plugin β†’ paste the MCP Server URL https://notesbridge.vercel.app/mcp β†’ Authentication OAuth β†’ sign in & Allow.

That's it. In a new chat: "Search my Apple Notes for the Q3 planning note" or "Create a note titled Groceries with milk, eggs, coffee."

Your Mac must be awake with the agent running. npx apple-notes-agent install makes it start automatically at login and restart if it ever crashes.

Managing the agent

npx apple-notes-agent status      # is it paired & reachable?
npx apple-notes-agent logs        # recent activity
npx apple-notes-agent uninstall   # stop auto-start

What ChatGPT can do

Tool Action
search Search notes by keyword
fetch / get_note Read a note's full content
list_folders List folders with note counts
list_notes List notes (optionally by folder)
create_note Create a new note
append_to_note Append text to a note
update_note Rewrite a note (destructive β€” ChatGPT confirms first)

Self-hosting

You can run your own relay so nothing depends on the hosted instance.

Prereqs: a Vercel account and a Supabase project (free tiers are fine).

  1. Storage β€” in your Supabase project's SQL editor, run supabase/schema.sql. It creates a tiny Redis-shaped KV + queue surface (nb_* functions) with RLS on.
  2. Deploy the server/ directory to Vercel.
  3. Set env vars (see server/.env.example):
    • SUPABASE_URL, SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY β€” your project + service-role key
    • JWT_SECRET β€” openssl rand -hex 32
  4. Verify: curl https://YOUR-APP.vercel.app/api/health β†’ redisConfigured, redisOk, jwtSecretSet all true.
  5. Point the agent at it: npx apple-notes-agent pair <CODE> --server https://YOUR-APP.vercel.app.

How it works

  • Auth β€” OAuth 2.1 with PKCE and Dynamic Client Registration (RFC 7591). ChatGPT registers itself, the user signs in on the NotesBridge consent page, and ChatGPT gets a scoped MCP access token. JWTs are HMAC-signed; three kinds (session, agent, mcp) with distinct privileges. Optional email verification via Resend (RESEND_API_KEY); off unless configured, and enforcement is opt-in (REQUIRE_EMAIL_VERIFICATION).
  • Relay β€” MCP tool call β†’ job pushed to jobs:<user> (TTL ≀ the caller's wait window, so an abandoned job can't run late) β†’ the Mac agent (holding a hanging long-poll) is handed the job within ~200ms, executes it, pushes the result β†’ the MCP handler returns it. The long-poll means jobs are delivered on arrival rather than on a fixed interval, so relay overhead is ~300ms instead of ~1s. The agent is considered "online" only while it's actively connected.
  • Agent β€” a dependency-free Node CLI. Tools run via JXA (osascript -l JavaScript) against Notes.app; arguments are passed as JSON over argv (never shell-interpolated). A macOS LaunchAgent keeps it alive across logins and crashes.

Repository layout

server/    Vercel functions: OAuth + MCP endpoint + relay        (deploy this)
agent/     apple-notes-agent β€” the npm-published Mac CLI          (users npx this)
kit/       Browser automations: register the dev-mode connector AND
           fill the OpenAI directory submission (see kit/README.md)
supabase/  schema.sql for self-hosting the storage
test/      end-to-end OAuth + MCP integration test

Development

# server
cd server && cp .env.example .env.local   # fill in, then: vercel dev
# end-to-end test against a live deployment (reads ../.env.local)
node test/e2e-oauth.mjs
# agent unit tests
node --test agent/test-agent-unit.mjs

Security & privacy

  • Notes are read/written only on your Mac. The relay never persists note content β€” job payloads live in Redis-shaped storage with a short TTL and are deleted on delivery.
  • The agent token is stored at ~/.notesbridge-agent.json (mode 600).
  • No secrets are committed; see .gitignore and the .env.example files.
  • Write tools are marked destructive so ChatGPT asks before overwriting.

License

MIT Β© Isaiah Dupree

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