Note: This is a personal project meant for my Journal, this is not a general purpose RAG mcp server

search-journal

An MCP server that searches Markdown journals using Ollama embeddings and a SQLite vector index. The Streamable HTTP endpoint is /mcp (port 8000).

Docker

Requires Docker with the Compose plugin, an Ollama server, and the embedding model installed on that server:

ollama pull embeddinggemma-2:270m
docker compose build

Compose uses host networking on Linux/NixOS and connects to Ollama at http://127.0.0.1:11434/api/embed. Keep Ollama bound to localhost (its default); there is no need to expose it to your LAN. If you previously changed OLLAMA_HOST to 0.0.0.0:11434, restore it to 127.0.0.1:11434 and restart Ollama.

Host networking shares the host's network namespace, so the container has less network isolation. The MCP server explicitly binds to 127.0.0.1:8000, and no Docker port publishing is needed. Port 8000 must be free on the host. Docker Desktop requires host networking support to be enabled.

For a remote Ollama server or a different model, set OLLAMA_URL and/or MODEL in a local .env file before running Compose:

OLLAMA_URL=http://192.168.1.10:11434/api/embed
MODEL=embeddinggemma-2:270m

Index your journals

Mount your Markdown directory read-only and run the indexer using the same image, settings, and persistent database volume as the server:

./index.sh /path/to/journals

Relative paths are supported. Quote paths containing spaces, for example:

./index.sh "~/Documents/My Journals"

Run ./index.sh --help for usage. The script validates the folder and mounts it read-only at /journals inside the container.

Then start the server:

docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f

Connect your MCP client to http://localhost:8000/mcp. Index at least one non-empty Markdown file before searching. Re-run the indexing command to update changed files, keeping the same /journals mount path. Use the same embedding model for indexing and searching; rebuild the index if you change models.

LAN access

The default Compose configuration only accepts connections from the Docker host. To allow other machines on your LAN, change HOST in docker-compose.yaml:

    environment:
      HOST: 0.0.0.0

Recreate the container to apply the change:

docker compose up -d --force-recreate

LAN clients can then connect to http://<server-lan-ip>:8000/mcp. Because Compose uses host networking, no ports: mapping is needed. If your host has a firewall, allow TCP port 8000 only from the intended clients. Ollama can remain bound to localhost; it does not need to be exposed to the LAN.

Setting HOST in .env alone does not enable LAN access: the current Compose file hardcodes it to 127.0.0.1.

Persistence and security

• The journal-data named volume stores /data/index.db and survives container replacement and docker compose down. docker compose down -v deletes it.

• The image runs as a non-root user (UID/GID 10001). If replacing the named volume with a host bind mount, make its directory writable by that user. An existing index.db can be placed there before starting the service.

• Journal files, local databases, .env files, and .venv are excluded from the image build context. The database contains journal text; treat it as private.

• Compose binds the MCP server only to 127.0.0.1 by default. The server has no authentication and returns private journal content. Put an authenticated reverse proxy in front of it before allowing access from other machines, and restrict direct access to port 8000 to that proxy. Do not expose the unauthenticated endpoint to the internet.

Related MCP server: ai-journal

Configuration

Without Docker, install dependencies with uv sync --locked, run uv run python index.py /path/to/journals, then uv run python main.py. Environment variables must be exported when running locally; .env is read by Compose, not by the Python scripts.

License

MIT