Claudeleaf

Bring Claude (and any agent) into Overleaf. Claudeleaf is a reliable TypeScript bridge that drives the Overleaf web editor in real time — listing your projects, opening documents, reading them, and inserting/changing/deleting text — exactly as if a person were typing, so collaborators see the edits live. It ships as an SDK, a CLI, and an MCP server for Claude Code. One signed-in instance can work across all of your projects.

Features

Real editing, not git. Edits go through Overleaf's live collaboration channel (ShareJS over Socket.IO), so they appear instantly to everyone in the project, attributed to your user.
All your projects, one instance. List every project you can access and edit any of them by id or name — no project configured up front.
Full document control — list documents, read text, insert at a position or line/column, replace ranges or literal text, delete ranges or lines, replace a whole document, and create/delete/rename files.
Compile & error logs — trigger a LaTeX recompile and get back the status plus the parsed errors and warnings (with file and line), or the full raw log.
Reliable by design — automatic reconnect with document re-join, per-document edit serialization, and server-confirmed edits (no silent loss).
Zero config, easy sign-in. No credentials stored and nothing to configure: run claudeleaf login once, sign in by hand in the browser that opens (handles reCAPTCHA / SSO / 2FA), and the session is cached.
Three ways to use it — a TypeScript SDK, a CLI, and an MCP server so Claude Code can work on your projects autonomously.
Self-hosting friendly — point it at any Overleaf instance with one environment variable.

Getting Started

You don't need to clone or install anything — just Node.js 20+ (which provides npx). Sign in once, then run any command:

npx claudeleaf login       # opens your browser; sign in by hand (handles reCAPTCHA/SSO/2FA)
npx claudeleaf doctor      # checks the session and lists your projects

login drives your installed Google Chrome (or Microsoft Edge); no browser download is needed. The session is cached under ~/.claudeleaf, so every later command reuses it.

Recommended: sign in as a dedicated bot account. Every edit is attributed to whoever is signed in, so create a separate Overleaf account for the agent, invite it into your project as a collaborator (Share → Can edit), and run claudeleaf login as that account. Then every change the bot makes shows up under the bot's name in Overleaf's history — transparent, easy to review or revert, and clearly distinct from your own edits.

Tip: npx claudeleaf@latest … always fetches the newest release. To avoid the per-run fetch, install it once with npm install -g claudeleaf and then just run claudeleaf ….

Use the CLI

Every document command takes a project (id or name) followed by the document path:

npx claudeleaf projects                               # list all your projects
npx claudeleaf ls "My Paper"                          # list documents
npx claudeleaf cat "My Paper" main.tex                # print a document
npx claudeleaf append "My Paper" main.tex "\\section{New}"
npx claudeleaf replace "My Paper" main.tex "foo" "bar"
npx claudeleaf search "My Paper" main.tex "\\section"
npx claudeleaf compile "My Paper"                     # recompile; print errors/warnings
npx claudeleaf compile "My Paper" --warnings --log    # also show warnings + the raw log

Use it with Claude Code (MCP)

claude mcp add claudeleaf -- npx -y claudeleaf mcp

The tools reuse the session from claudeleaf login (they won't pop a browser). Claude can overleaf_list_projects, then read, edit, and compile documents in any project by id or name.

Use the SDK

npm install claudeleaf

import { OverleafClient } from "claudeleaf";

const client = new OverleafClient(); // account-scoped; uses the cached session
for (const p of await client.listProjects()) {
  console.log(p.id, p.name);
}
await client.append("My Paper", "main.tex", "\n% added by an agent\n");
await client.replaceText("My Paper", "main.tex", "Your Paper", "Our Paper");

const compile = await client.compile("My Paper");
console.log(compile.status, compile.errors); // errors carry { message, file, line }

Develop locally

git clone <this repo> && cd claudeleaf
npm install
npm run claudeleaf -- login   # run the CLI from source via tsx
npm test                      # unit tests (live tests auto-skip without a session)
npm run build                 # compile to dist/

Notes

Claudeleaf edits the live document. Use Overleaf's history to review or revert changes.
The cached session is a credential; it lives under ~/.claudeleaf with restrictive permissions.