mcp-standardnotes

Give Claude secure read/write access to your Standard Notes vault — end-to-end encrypted, local stdio only, zero cloud middleman.

Ask Claude to summarize your notes, draft new ones, organize tags, search across your vault — all while your master key stays on your machine. Works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and any MCP-compatible client.

Disclaimer. This is an unofficial third-party integration. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Standard Notes Ltd. "Standard Notes" is a trademark of Standard Notes Ltd.

Why

• 🔒 End-to-end encrypted. All decryption happens locally using audited libsodium primitives (Argon2id + XChaCha20-Poly1305 IETF). Your password never leaves RAM; your master key never leaves your machine.
• 🔌 Local stdio only. No network port is ever opened by this server.
• 🔑 OS keychain for session storage. macOS Keychain, Linux libsecret, Windows Credential Vault — never plaintext files.
• ☁️ Works with the official cloud or self-hosted Standard Notes servers.

Features

Tool	What it does
notes_list / notes_search / notes_get	Browse and search your notes (filter by tag with tag: "<uuid-or-title>")
notes_create / notes_update / notes_delete	Write notes (markdown, super, code, rich-text, task, spreadsheet, plain-text)
notes_create_many	Batch-create up to 50 notes in one sync push
notes_stats	Vault stats: counts, sizes, oldest/newest/largest note
tags_list / tags_get / tags_create / tags_update / tags_delete	Full tag CRUD
tags_attach / tags_detach	Link/unlink tags to notes
sync	Force a sync with the server

notes_create and notes_update accept an optional tags: string[] (tag UUIDs) to link tags at write time.

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 20
• A Standard Notes account on protocol 004 (default for any account created or upgraded since 2020)
• macOS, Linux, or Windows with a working OS keychain

Quickstart

1. Install

npm install -g mcp-standardnotes

Or run from a clone if you prefer:

git clone https://github.com/lozit/mcp-standardnotes.git
cd mcp-standardnotes
npm install && npm run build

2. Log in once

mcp-standardnotes-login         # if installed globally
# or, from a clone:
npm run login

You'll be prompted for email and password. The password derives your master key in memory (Argon2id) and is never written to disk. An encrypted session is stored in your OS keychain; subsequent runs reuse it automatically. At the end of login, you're offered to wire the server into Claude Desktop in one step — accept it, restart Desktop, done.

3. Hook it up to Claude

Claude Desktop (macOS / Windows) — easiest path, run:

mcp-standardnotes-install

This writes the right entry (absolute Node + binary paths, your email from the keychain) into ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (or %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on Windows), backing up any existing config first. Quit Claude Desktop fully (⌘Q) and relaunch.

Claude Code — let the claude CLI do it:

mcp-standardnotes-install code   # prints the exact `claude mcp add` command

Or add to ~/.claude.json / .mcp.json manually:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-standardnotes": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "mcp-standardnotes",
      "env": { "SN_EMAIL": "you@example.com" }
    }
  }
}

Then /mcp to reconnect.

Any other MCP client — run node dist/index.js with SN_EMAIL set in the environment. Transport is stdio.

Self-hosting Standard Notes? See docs/self-hosted.md for the docker-compose recipe and how to pin your TLS certificate.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
SN_EMAIL	required	Your SN account email. Must match what you used with npm run login.
SN_SERVER_URL	https://api.standardnotes.com	Sync server URL. Change for self-hosted instances.
KEYCHAIN_SERVICE	mcp-standardnotes	Override the keychain service name (useful for multiple accounts).
SN_CERT_FINGERPRINT	unset	SHA-256 TLS cert pin for self-hosted servers (64 hex chars, colons optional). See docs/self-hosted.md.

Security at a glance

• Password in RAM only during key derivation. Never logged, never stored.
• Session + master key hex → OS keychain only. Never plaintext files.
• stdio transport only. No HTTP port, ever.
• All logs go to stderr, routed through a redactor that masks passwords, keys, JWTs, and token-like strings.
• All tool inputs validated by zod.
• npm audit HIGH/CRITICAL is a merge blocker in CI.
• Only the protocol 004 framing is implemented locally; all cryptographic primitives come from libsodium-wrappers-sumo.

Full threat model and deep-dive: docs/protocol-004.md.

Troubleshooting

Common issues and fixes: docs/troubleshooting.md.

Logout

SN_EMAIL=you@example.com mcp-standardnotes-logout
# or, from a clone:
SN_EMAIL=you@example.com npm run logout

Roadmap

Upcoming work tracked in ROADMAP.md.

Contributing

Contributions welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, tests, and PR checklist.

License

MIT — use it, fork it, ship it.

Credits

• Standard Notes for the encryption design and public API.
• Model Context Protocol and Anthropic for the MCP SDK.
• libsodium by Frank Denis, exposed via libsodium-wrappers-sumo.