Quip MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides native access to Quip documents from any MCP-compatible AI client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or custom integrations). Search, browse, and read Quip documents as clean markdown — enabling powerful workflows like querying interview schedules, reviewing application materials across folders, or generating preparation plans from scattered documents.

Features

• Search documents — Full-text search across your Quip workspace

• Browse folders — List folder contents or recursively explore folder trees

• Read documents — Fetch document content converted to clean markdown

• User info — Get current user profile and root folder IDs

Related MCP server: Reader MCP Server

Tools

Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+

• A Quip API access token (generate one here)

Install & Build

npm install
npm run build

Configure with MCP Clients

Claude Code

claude mcp add -s user \
  -e QUIP_ACCESS_TOKEN="<your-token>" \
  -e QUIP_API_BASE="https://platform.quip.com" \
  quip -- node /path/to/quip-local-mcp/build/index.js

Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quip": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/quip-local-mcp/build/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "QUIP_ACCESS_TOKEN": "<your-token>",
        "QUIP_API_BASE": "https://platform.quip.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: For custom Quip domains, change QUIP_API_BASE accordingly (e.g., https://yourcompany.quip.com).

Development

npm run dev          # Watch mode (recompile on changes)
npm run lint         # Type check (tsc --noEmit)
npm test             # Run tests
npm run test:watch   # Run tests in watch mode
npm run test:coverage # Run tests with coverage report

Architecture

src/
├── index.ts              # MCP server entry point (stdio transport)
├── quip-client.ts        # Quip REST API client (auth, rate limiting, retries)
├── html-converter.ts     # HTML → Markdown via Turndown with Quip-specific rules
├── types.ts              # TypeScript interfaces for Quip API responses
└── tools/
    ├── get-user.ts       # quip_get_user
    ├── get-folder.ts     # quip_get_folder
    ├── get-document.ts   # quip_get_document
    ├── search.ts         # quip_search
    └── browse-tree.ts    # quip_browse_folder_tree

Key Design Decisions

• HTML → Markdown via Turndown — Quip returns HTML; Turndown converts it to clean markdown for LLM consumption with custom rules for Quip-specific elements (checklists, section wrappers, embedded spreadsheets).

• Client-side rate limiting — Token bucket at 40 req/min (conservative vs Quip's 50/min limit) with exponential backoff on 429 responses.

• Errors as text content — MCP best practice: errors are returned in tool output so the LLM can see and respond to them.

• Large document truncation — Default 50k character limit with clear warning to prevent token overflow.

License

MIT