OneNote MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that connects GitHub Copilot (and other MCP-compatible AI tools) to Microsoft OneNote for Business via the Microsoft Graph API.

Features

Related MCP server: OneNote MCP Server

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or later

• A Microsoft 365 / Office 365 work or school account

• An Azure AD app registration with a client secret and application permissions (one-time setup, free, takes ~5 minutes)

Step 1 — Register an Azure AD App

This is a one-time setup. You need an Azure account that has access to your organisation's Azure AD.

1. Go to https://entra.microsoft.com and sign in.

2. Navigate to Identity → Applications → App registrations → New registration.

3. Fill in:

   • Name: OneNote MCP Server (or any name you prefer)

   • Supported account types: Single tenant is recommended for background-service access.

4. Click Register.

5. On the app overview page, copy:

   • Application (client) ID → this is your ONENOTE_CLIENT_ID

   • Directory (tenant) ID → this is your ONENOTE_TENANT_ID

6. Go to Certificates & secrets → New client secret and copy the secret value.

7. Go to API permissions → Add a permission → Microsoft Graph → Application permissions.

8. Add Notes.ReadWrite.All.

9. Click Grant admin consent for your tenant.

Step 2 — Install the MCP Server

# Clone or download this repository, then:
cd onenote-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build

Step 3 — Use from GitHub in any project (no local clone required)

After you push this repo to GitHub, you can reference it directly from MCP host configs:

{
  "servers": {
    "onenote": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "github:<YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME>/onenote_mcp_server"],
      "env": {
        "ONENOTE_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id-from-step-1",
        "ONENOTE_TENANT_ID": "your-tenant-id",
        "ONENOTE_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret",
        "ONENOTE_USER_PRINCIPAL_NAME": "service-account@yourtenant.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace <YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME>/onenote_mcp_server with your actual GitHub repo path. The prepare script builds TypeScript automatically when the package is installed from GitHub.

Step 4 — Configure GitHub Copilot Desktop

Option A: Workspace configuration (recommended for team sharing)

Edit .vscode/mcp.json in this project (already provided) and fill in your values:

{
  "servers": {
    "onenote": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/onenote-mcp-server/build/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "ONENOTE_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id-from-step-1",
        "ONENOTE_TENANT_ID": "your-tenant-id",
        "ONENOTE_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret",
        "ONENOTE_USER_PRINCIPAL_NAME": "service-account@yourtenant.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Windows path example: "C:\\Users\\you\\onenote-mcp-server\\build\\index.js"

Option B: User-level configuration (applies to all your workspaces)

In VS Code, open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) → MCP: Open User Configuration, then add:

{
  "servers": {
    "onenote": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/onenote-mcp-server/build/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "ONENOTE_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id",
        "ONENOTE_TENANT_ID": "your-tenant-id"
      }
    }
  }
}

Step 5 — Start Using the Server

The server authenticates automatically with the configured app registration and accesses OneNote for the user principal name you set in ONENOTE_USER_PRINCIPAL_NAME.

Environment Variables

Usage Examples

Once configured, you can ask Copilot things like:

• "List all my OneNote notebooks"

• "Show me the sections in my Work notebook"

• "Create a section called 'Meeting Notes' in my Project notebook"

• "Create a OneNote page titled 'Sprint Planning' with a bullet list of our team goals"

• "Get the content of page [ID] so I can update it"

• "Add a new paragraph to the end of page [ID]"

Token Cache Location

After the service first authenticates, the token cache is stored here (never committed to git):

The cache file is restricted to owner-only permissions (chmod 600 on Unix).
To force re-authentication, delete this file.

Security

• Confidential client app — client secrets are required and kept in environment variables

• Application permissions — Notes.ReadWrite.All via the Graph .default scope

• Client credentials flow — the server authenticates headlessly in the background

• Tokens never logged — the Authorization header and token values are never written to logs

• Input validation — all resource IDs are validated against a safe-ID pattern before URL interpolation

• HTML sanitisation — script tags, event handlers, and dangerous URI schemes are stripped from page content

• Atomic cache writes — token cache is written via temp file + rename to prevent corruption

Scopes and Permissions

The server requests Notes.ReadWrite.All as an application permission, which covers:

• Reading notebooks, sections, and pages for the configured user principal name

• Creating notebooks, sections, and pages

• Updating pages

Admin consent is required for the app permission.

Troubleshooting

"ONENOTE_CLIENT_ID environment variable is not set"
→ Make sure ONENOTE_CLIENT_ID is set in your mcp.json env block.

"ONENOTE_CLIENT_SECRET environment variable is not set"
→ Make sure the client secret value is set in your mcp.json env block.

"ONENOTE_USER_PRINCIPAL_NAME environment variable is not set"
→ Make sure the service account UPN is set in your mcp.json env block.

"Graph API error: 403"
→ The app registration is missing Notes.ReadWrite.All, admin consent was not granted, or the configured user principal name cannot access the requested notebook.

"Graph API error: 401"
→ Delete the token cache file (listed above under "Token Cache Location") and re-authenticate.

"Request timed out"
→ Network issue connecting to graph.microsoft.com. Check your proxy/firewall settings.

Use with other MCP hosts (Claude Desktop / Cursor / others)

Any MCP host that supports stdio can use this server with the same command/env pattern:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "onenote": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "github:<YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME>/onenote_mcp_server"],
      "env": {
        "ONENOTE_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id",
        "ONENOTE_TENANT_ID": "your-tenant-id",
        "ONENOTE_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret",
        "ONENOTE_USER_PRINCIPAL_NAME": "service-account@yourtenant.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

If your host expects servers instead of mcpServers, keep the same inner object and rename only the top-level key.

Development

# Run without building (uses tsx)
npm run dev

# Build TypeScript
npm run build

# Start the built server
npm start

API Reference

All operations use the Microsoft Graph API v1.0 endpoints:

Note: The server uses application permissions to access OneNote for the configured user principal name. Admin consent is required.