Open Notebook can be seamlessly integrated into your AI workflows using the Model Context Protocol (MCP), enabling direct access to your notebooks, sources, and chat functionality from AI assistants like Claude Desktop and VS Code extensions.
The Model Context Protocol is an open standard that allows AI applications to securely connect to external data sources and tools. With the Open Notebook MCP server, you can:
- 📚 Access your notebooks directly from Claude Desktop or VS Code
- 🔍 Search your research content without leaving your AI assistant
- 💬 Create and manage chat sessions with your research as context
- 📝 Generate notes and insights on-the-fly
- 🤖 Automate workflows using the full Open Notebook API
-
Install the MCP server (automatically from PyPI):
# No manual installation needed! Claude Desktop will use uvx to run it automatically -
Configure Claude Desktop:
macOS/Linux: Edit
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json{ "mcpServers": { "open-notebook": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["open-notebook-mcp"], "env": { "OPEN_NOTEBOOK_URL": "http://localhost:5055", "OPEN_NOTEBOOK_PASSWORD": "your_password_here" } } } }Windows: Edit
%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json{ "mcpServers": { "open-notebook": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["open-notebook-mcp"], "env": { "OPEN_NOTEBOOK_URL": "http://localhost:5055", "OPEN_NOTEBOOK_PASSWORD": "your_password_here" } } } } -
Restart Claude Desktop and start using your notebooks in conversations!
Add to your VS Code settings or .vscode/mcp.json:
{
"servers": {
"open-notebook": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["open-notebook-mcp"],
"env": {
"OPEN_NOTEBOOK_URL": "http://localhost:5055",
"OPEN_NOTEBOOK_PASSWORD": "your_password_here"
}
}
}
}- OPEN_NOTEBOOK_URL: URL to your Open Notebook API (default:
http://localhost:5055) - OPEN_NOTEBOOK_PASSWORD: Optional - only needed if you've enabled password protection
If your Open Notebook instance is running on a remote server, update the URL accordingly:
"OPEN_NOTEBOOK_URL": "http://192.168.1.100:5055"Or with a domain:
"OPEN_NOTEBOOK_URL": "https://notebook.yourdomain.com/api"Once connected, you can ask Claude or your AI assistant to:
- "Search my research notebooks for information about [topic]"
- "Create a new note summarizing the key points from our conversation"
- "List all my notebooks"
- "Start a chat session about [specific source or topic]"
- "What sources do I have in my [notebook name] notebook?"
- "Add this PDF to my research notebook"
- "Show me all notes in [notebook name]"
The MCP server provides full access to Open Notebook's capabilities, allowing you to manage your research seamlessly from within your AI assistant.
The Open Notebook MCP server exposes these capabilities:
- List notebooks
- Get notebook details
- Create new notebooks
- Update notebook information
- Delete notebooks
- List sources in a notebook
- Get source details
- Add new sources (links, files, text)
- Update source metadata
- Delete sources
- List notes in a notebook
- Get note details
- Create new notes
- Update notes
- Delete notes
- Create chat sessions
- Send messages to chat sessions
- Get chat history
- List chat sessions
- Vector search across content
- Text search across content
- Filter by notebook
- List configured AI models
- Get model details
- Create model configurations
- Update model settings
- Get application settings
- Update settings
The Open Notebook MCP server is developed and maintained by the Epochal team:
🔗 GitHub: Epochal-dev/open-notebook-mcp
Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome!
The Open Notebook MCP server is published to the official MCP Registry:
- Registry: Search for "open-notebook" at registry.modelcontextprotocol.io
- PyPI: pypi.org/project/open-notebook-mcp
- GitHub: Epochal-dev/open-notebook-mcp
- Verify the
OPEN_NOTEBOOK_URLis correct and accessible - If using password protection, ensure
OPEN_NOTEBOOK_PASSWORDis set correctly - For remote servers, make sure port 5055 is accessible from your machine
- Check firewall settings if connecting to a remote server
The Open Notebook MCP server follows the standard MCP protocol and can be used with any MCP-compatible client. Check your client's documentation for configuration details.