Provides comprehensive integration with Outline knowledge base API, enabling document operations (create, read, update, delete, search, archive, move), collection management, commenting and collaboration features, AI-powered document queries, and template creation from existing documents.
Outline MCP Server
MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for Outline API interaction with focus on simplicity, performance, and reliability.
🚀 Quick Start
1. Get Your Outline API Key
- Outline.com: https://app.outline.com/settings/api-and-apps
- Self-hosted: https://your-instance.com/settings/api-and-apps
2. Download & Install
Choose one of the installation methods:
🔄 Option 1: Download pre-built binary (Recommended)
Download from GitHub Releases
After extracting:
- Linux/macOS: If needed, make executable:
chmod +x outline-mcp
- Windows: Since the release is not code-signed, 🛡️ Windows Defender may block execution. You'll need to:
- Allow the executable through Windows Defender/antivirus
- Add the folder to Windows Defender exclusions, or
- Right-click the file → Properties → "Unblock" if downloaded from internet
📦 Option 2: Install from crates.io
Requires Rust toolchain. The binary will be installed to ~/.cargo/bin/outline-mcp
🔨 Option 3: Build from source
❄️ Option 4: Nix (with reproducible environment)
3. Configure your AI agent
JSON configuration for Cursor IDE, Gemini CLI:
💡 Path Notes:
- cargo install: Use
"outline-mcp"
(added to PATH automatically)- Downloaded binary: Use full path like
"/path/to/outline-mcp"
- Built from source: Use
"/path/to/outline-mcp-rs/target/release/outline-mcp"
⚠️ Important Path Requirements:
- Use absolute paths - relative paths may not work correctly
- No spaces in the executable file path (use underscores or hyphens instead)
- ASCII characters only - avoid non-Latin characters in paths
- Windows users: Use double backslashes
\\
in paths (e.g.,"C:\\tools\\outline-mcp.exe"
)
✅ Good examples:
- Linux/macOS:
"/usr/local/bin/outline-mcp"
or"/home/user/bin/outline-mcp"
- Windows:
"C:\\tools\\outline-mcp.exe"
or"C:\\Users\\YourName\\bin\\outline-mcp.exe"
❌ Avoid:
"./outline-mcp"
(relative path)"/path with spaces/outline-mcp"
(spaces in path)"/путь/outline-mcp"
(non-Latin characters)"C:\tools\outline-mcp.exe"
(single backslash on Windows)
🛠️ Supported Tools
Complete coverage of Outline API functionality:
📄 Document Operations
create_document
- Create new documentget_document
- Retrieve document by IDupdate_document
- Update existing documentdelete_document
- Delete documentlist_documents
- List documents with filteringsearch_documents
- Search documents by queryarchive_document
- Archive documentmove_document
- Move document between collections
📁 Collection Management
create_collection
- Create new collectionget_collection
- Retrieve collection detailsupdate_collection
- Update collection metadatalist_collections
- List all collections
💬 Comments & Collaboration
create_comment
- Add comment to documentupdate_comment
- Modify existing commentdelete_comment
- Remove comment
🔍 Advanced Features
create_template_from_document
- Create reusable templateslist_users
- User management
🎯 Project Principles
⚡ Performance
- Static builds with musl/glibc - single file without dependencies
- < 5MB binary with full functionality
- < 10ms startup time to ready state
- < 10MB memory usage
🛡️ Reliability
- Zero dependencies at runtime (static linking)
- Explicit error handling - no panics in production
- Type safety - leveraging Rust's ownership system
- Comprehensive testing - unit and integration tests
🔧 Simplicity
- Minimal code - only essential functionality
- Clear architecture - easy to understand and modify
- Single binary - simple deployment
- Environment configuration - no config files
📋 Development Requirements
- Nix (recommended) - handles all dependencies automatically
- OR manually: Rust 1.75+, OpenSSL development libraries
🏗️ Architecture
Core Components
- Transport Layer: STDIO and HTTP adapters
- MCP Protocol: JSON-RPC 2.0 implementation
- Outline Client: HTTP API wrapper
- Tools Registry: Dynamic tool discovery and execution
Quick Build Commands:
macOS Development Setup:
📖 For detailed macOS development instructions, see docs/MACOS.md
🔐 For Windows code signing setup, see docs/WINDOWS_SIGNING.md
🧪 Testing
🔧 Configuration
STDIO Mode (Default)
HTTP Mode
🔧 Optimized Nix Configuration
Our flake.nix
has been carefully optimized to eliminate duplication and improve maintainability:
🏗️ Architecture Improvements
- 📦 Metadata Sync: Package information references
Cargo.toml
values with comments - 🔄 Reusable Shell Builder:
mkDevShell
function eliminates code duplication - 🎯 Consistent Shell Hooks: Unified
mkShellHook
function for all environments - ⚡ Base Build Inputs: Shared dependencies across all development shells
- 🧪 Automated Checks: Built-in formatting, linting, and testing workflows
📋 Available Commands
🤝 Contributing
- Fork the repository
- Create feature branch (
git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature
) - Make changes with tests
- Ensure all checks pass:
cargo test && cargo clippy
- Submit pull request
Development Workflow
📄 License
MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.
🙏 Acknowledgments
- Outline team for excellent API documentation
- Anthropic for MCP protocol specification
- Rust community for outstanding tooling and libraries
This server cannot be installed
remote-capable server
The server can be hosted and run remotely because it primarily relies on remote services or has no dependency on the local environment.
MCP server for Outline knowledge base implemented on Rust as one statically linked executable file for Linux/MacOS/Windows.
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