notes-mcp

An MCP server for Apple Notes that can read and write checklist state — so an agent can do things like "reset my workout checklist" or "tell me what I didn't finish today".

That sounds simple. It isn't: AppleScript cannot see checklists at all. A note full of checkboxes arrives over the scripting bridge as plain bullets with no state, and writing back through AppleScript silently converts every checklist into permanent plain bullets. Most Apple Notes automations quietly have this bug.

This server routes around it using Notes' App Intents API, reached through generated Shortcuts. Full reverse-engineering notes are in docs/spike-findings.md.

Requirements

• macOS 13 or later (developed on macOS 26)

• Node.js 20+

• Permission for your terminal to control Notes (macOS prompts on first use)

No Full Disk Access, no Accessibility, no SQLite parsing.

Related MCP server: apple-notes-mcp

Install

git clone https://github.com/eliotshea/notes-mcp.git
cd notes-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm run setup

setup generates, signs, and installs three helper shortcuts, then verifies the whole pipeline end to end by creating a scratch note, reading its checklist state back, clearing it, and deleting it.

You will get three "Add Shortcut" prompts. Approve each one. macOS has no command-line path to install a shortcut, so this step cannot be automated. It only happens once.

Then register the server with your MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "notes": { "command": "node", "args": ["/absolute/path/to/notes-mcp/dist/index.js"] }
  }
}

Verify at any time with npm run setup -- --check, or by calling the check_setup tool.

Tools

Discovery — fast, AppleScript-backed, never touches note content.

Content — routed through App Intents so checklist state is accurate.

Checklists

Organization — create_folder, move_note, delete_note (needs confirm: true; goes to Recently Deleted and is recoverable).

Health — check_setup.

Markdown

Notes does the Markdown conversion itself, so it round-trips cleanly:

- [ ] Barbell squat     →  ○ Barbell squat     (unchecked checklist item)
- [x] Hip thrust        →  ◉ Hip thrust        (checked checklist item)
- Warm up first         →  • Warm up first     (ordinary bullet)

Reading a note back yields tab-delimited markers — ◦ unchecked, ✓ checked, ⁃ ordinary bullet — which the server parses into structured items for you.

Headings, numbered lists and nesting are preserved. Apple's two APIs each tell half the story: the App Intents text carries checked state and list type but flattens indentation and strips heading levels, while the AppleScript HTML preserves structure but has no state. The server reads both and merges them by position, so #/##/### headings, 1. numbered lists, and nesting all survive a rebuild. If the two sources disagree, tools report nestingResolved: false and refuse to rewrite rather than silently restructuring your note.

Inline styling survives too. Bold, italic and strikethrough are recovered from the note's HTML and re-emitted as Markdown, so they round-trip.

What cannot be preserved. Notes' Markdown importer escapes raw HTML, and Markdown is the only write path that produces checkboxes — so text colour, underline, block quotes and links are lost on rebuild, along with attachments and tables. Rebuilding also trims trailing whitespace. Tools that rebuild refuse and name exactly what would be lost; pass force: true to override.

Highlighting is invisible. Notes' highlight (coloured background) is absent from every API surface — AppleScript HTML, the App Intents body, RTF, HTML, and even a rendered PDF, all verified with text-colour and bold as positive controls. It cannot be detected, read, or written, so it is destroyed by any rebuild and every rebuild result carries a warning saying so.

Example

> Reset my Leg day checklist for tomorrow

  read_checklist  { note: "Leg day" }
    → [{0,"Barbell squat",true}, {1,"Hip thrust",true}, {2,"Hamstring curl",false}]
  clear_checklist { note: "Leg day" }
    → 2 items changed, all now unchecked

How it works

discovery / metadata ──→ AppleScript (JXA)      ~0.17s for 177 notes
content + checklists ──→ Shortcuts → App Intents ~0.4s warm

AppleScript is used only where it is fast and truthful — listing, search, folders, moving, deleting, and clearing a body. Anything involving checklist structure goes through the bridge, because AppleScript's view of a checklist is actively misleading rather than merely incomplete.

Three shortcuts are installed: notes-mcp-read-body, notes-mcp-append-markdown, and notes-mcp-create-note. They take JSON on stdin and return text, so all arguments are passed at run time and nothing is regenerated per call.

Changing checked state works by rebuild: read the note, clear its body, and re-append every line as Markdown with the desired state. There is no per-item toggle action in Notes' API, so this is the only route. The note keeps its id, folder, and creation date.

Limitations

• Notes are addressed by name, so names must be unique. Duplicates raise an error rather than guessing.

• Rebuild is lossy for rich content. Images, tables, and inline styling in the same note are not reconstructed. Tools that rebuild refuse when they detect attachments or tables; pass force: true to override. List nesting is preserved.

• Password-protected notes are unreadable.

• Setup needs manual clicks — three, once.

• Bridge dispatch is ~0.4s warm, a few seconds cold. Discovery tools are much faster because they skip the bridge.

Development

npm run build      # compile
npm test           # build + run the parser test suite
npm run setup -- --check   # verify the installation

The parsing and rendering logic in src/checklist.ts is pure and covered by tests using fixtures captured verbatim from real Notes output.

License

MIT