Persist Notes MCP server

Português

An MCP server that gives Claude (Claude Code, Claude Desktop or any MCP client) read-only access to your Persist Notes meetings: search across summaries and transcripts, read a meeting summary, list pending action items and decisions, browse projects and their living synthesis, and read your weekly/monthly period summaries.

Persist Notes saves every meeting as a plain Markdown file (frontmatter + summary + your notes + transcript). This server reads those files directly. It does not need the Persist Notes app to be running, or even installed, as long as you have the notes folder.

Privacy

• Local only. The server runs on your computer over stdio. It opens no network connections and sends nothing anywhere by itself.

• Read-only. It never creates, changes or deletes files. Inside the server process, every file-writing function is blocked.

• What Claude sees. Only the text that a tool returns (excerpts, summaries, action items) goes to Claude, as part of your conversation. Audio files are never read.

Related MCP server: Granola MCP Server

Requirements

• Node.js 18 or newer (node --version).

• A Persist Notes notes folder (by default the app uses ~/Documents/Persist Notes; you can see yours in the app under Settings).

Configuration

The server finds the notes folder in this order:

1. --notes-dir "<path>"

2. the PERSIST_NOTES_DIR environment variable

3. notesDir in the Persist Notes app settings (~/Library/Application Support/Persist Notes/settings.json on macOS, %APPDATA%\Persist Notes\settings.json on Windows, ~/.config/Persist Notes/settings.json on Linux)

4. ~/Documents/Persist Notes

Claude Code

claude mcp add persist-notes -- npx -y @persistnotes/mcp --notes-dir "/Users/you/Documents/Persist Notes"

Add --scope user to make it available in every project. Check it with claude mcp list.

Claude Desktop

Edit claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config) and restart Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "persist-notes": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@persistnotes/mcp", "--notes-dir", "/Users/you/Documents/Persist Notes"]
    }
  }
}

On Windows use a path like "C:\\Users\\you\\Documents\\Persist Notes".

Options

Tools

All tools are read-only (readOnlyHint). Section titles are recognized in Portuguese, English and Spanish.

For compatibility with the server bundled with the Persist Notes app, the Portuguese names (buscar, listar_reunioes, ler_reuniao, commitments, decisoes, listar_projetos, sintese_projeto) are also accepted, with the same output.

Troubleshooting

• "Notes folder not found": pass the right folder with --notes-dir (quote paths with spaces) and restart the client.

• "Permission denied" / EPERM on macOS: the Documents folder is protected. Allow the app that starts the server (Claude, Terminal, your editor) in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files and Folders (or Full Disk Access), then restart it.

• npx not found in Claude Desktop: Claude Desktop may not see your shell PATH. Use the full path to npx (which npx) as command.

• Empty results: check that the folder has the meeting .md files (meetings in the root, projects as subfolders). Run npx -y @persistnotes/mcp --notes-dir "<path>" in a terminal: the first line on stderr shows which folder it is using. Stop it with Ctrl+C.

• Logs: Claude Code: claude mcp list / claude --debug. Claude Desktop: ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-persist-notes.log (macOS), %APPDATA%\Claude\logs (Windows).

Development

The server reuses the read-only modules of the Persist Notes app. npm run build (also run by npm pack/npm publish) copies them unchanged into dist/; src/server.js is the entry point.

License

MIT