trilium-bolt

Lightning-fast MCP server for Trilium Notes — returns LLM-friendly markdown instead of raw HTML, so AI can read and write your notes naturally. Search, create, update, and organize your notes with AI. Connect Claude to your personal knowledge base with minimal setup.

Quick Start

1. Get your Trilium token

In Trilium: Options → ETAPI → Create new ETAPI token

2. Configure Claude Code to use the MCP server

Add to your ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trilium": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "trilium-bolt@latest"],
      "env": {
        "TRILIUM_TOKEN": "your-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Not using Claude Code? See setup instructions for Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Cline, and other MCP clients

Running Trilium in Docker? See the Docker Setup Guide

Staying on the latest version

Pinning @latest in the config above makes npx re-check the npm registry on every launch, so new tool releases show up automatically the next time your MCP client restarts.

• Already configured without @latest? Update your config to trilium-bolt@latest as shown above, then restart your MCP client so it respawns the server process.

• Still seeing an old version after that? npx can serve a stale cached copy — clear it once with npx clear-npx-cache (or delete ~/.npm/_npx), then restart your client again.

• Installed globally instead (npm install -g trilium-bolt)? Global installs don't auto-update — run npm install -g trilium-bolt@latest to upgrade.

• Confirm the version in use: npm view trilium-bolt version shows the latest published version on npm to compare against.

3. Use it

You: Search my notes for "project ideas"
You: Create a new note called "Meeting Notes" under my Work folder
You: What's in my daily journal from last week?

That's it!

Related MCP server: triliumnext-mcp

Why Lightweight?

Unlike traditional servers, trilium-bolt uses stdio transport - meaning:

• On-demand execution - Only runs when Claude needs it, not a 24/7 daemon

• Zero network ports - No HTTP server, no port conflicts, no firewall rules

• Minimal memory - ~20-30MB when active, 0MB when idle

• No background processes - Spawned by Claude, terminates when done

• Instant startup - No container spin-up, just a Node.js process

How it works

┌──────────────┐     stdin/stdout      ┌─────────────┐     ETAPI      ┌─────────────┐
│  MCP Client  │ ◄──────────────────► │ trilium-bolt │ ◄────────────► │  Trilium    │
│ (Claude Code,│                       └─────────────┘                └─────────────┘
│  Cursor, etc)│                        Runs on-demand                 Your notes
└──────────────┘                        No daemon                      Local app

This is the simplest possible architecture - just a CLI that your MCP client invokes when you ask about your notes.

Markdown support

Trilium stores notes as HTML internally, but LLMs work much better with markdown. trilium-bolt handles the conversion transparently:

• Reading notes — HTML content is automatically converted to markdown before returning to the AI

• Creating/updating notes — Content is accepted as markdown by default and converted to HTML before saving to Trilium

• HTML pass-through — Set contentFormat: "html" on create/update calls if you need to send raw HTML

• Other note types — Only text notes are converted. Code, canvas and every other type are read and saved exactly as stored, and contentFormat is ignored for them

No configuration needed — markdown is the default for both input and output.

Tools

Configuration

Examples

Search notes:

Search my Trilium notes for anything about "machine learning"
Find all my notes tagged with "recipe"
Show me notes that are tagged both "recipe" and "vegetarian"
Find all notes where the priority label is set to "high" and status is "active"
Find all notes whose titles start with "Meeting"

Create a note:

Create a note titled "Book Notes: Atomic Habits" with a summary of the key points
Create a note called "Pasta Carbonara" tagged with "recipe" and "italian"

Create/update notes with attributes:

Create a note "Sprint Planning" with labels priority=high and status=active
Add a "completed" tag to my "Q4 Report" note
Update the priority label on my "Bug Fix" note to "low"

Delete attributes:

Remove the "deprecated" tag from my "Old API" note
Delete the priority label from my "Task List" note

Backups and revisions:

Create a backup of my Trilium database called "before-cleanup"
Save a revision of my "Project Plan" note before I make changes

Explore hierarchy:

Show me the structure of my "Projects" folder

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/mursilsayed/trilium-bolt.git
cd trilium-bolt
npm install
npm run build

To use your local build instead of the published package, point your MCP client to the built output:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trilium": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/trilium-bolt/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "TRILIUM_TOKEN": "your-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

For development, use npm run dev to rebuild on file changes.

Publishing to npm

npm run build
npm publish

To publish a pre-release or dry-run first:

npm publish --dry-run

Requirements

• Node.js 18+

• Trilium Notes running with ETAPI enabled

License

MIT