joplin-mcp 0.2.0

Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Joplin note-taking application

Joplin MCP Server

A FastMCP-based Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Joplin note-taking application via its Python API joppy, enabling AI assistants to interact with your Joplin notes, notebooks, and tags through a standardized interface.

Table of Contents

• What You Can Do
• Quick Start
• Example Usage
• Tool Permissions
• Advanced Configuration
• Project Structure
• Testing
• Complete Tool Reference

What You Can Do

This MCP server provides 21 optimized tools for comprehensive Joplin integration:

Note Management

• Find & Search: find_notes, find_notes_with_tag, find_notes_in_notebook, get_all_notes
• CRUD Operations: get_note, get_links, create_note, update_note, delete_note

Notebook Management

• Organize: list_notebooks, create_notebook, update_notebook, delete_notebook

Tag Management

• Categorize: list_tags, create_tag, update_tag, delete_tag, get_tags_by_note
• Link: tag_note, untag_note

System

• Health: ping_joplin

Quick Start

1. Install the Package

pip install joplin-mcp

2. Configure Joplin

1. Open Joplin Desktop → Tools → Options → Web Clipper
2. Enable the Web Clipper service
3. Copy the Authorization token

3. Run Setup Script

joplin-mcp-install

This interactive script will:

• Configure your Joplin API token
• Set tool permissions (Create/Update/Delete)
• Set up Claude Desktop automatically
• Test the connection

4. Choose Your AI Client

Option A: Claude Desktop

After running the setup script, restart Claude Desktop and you're ready to go!

"List my notebooks" or "Create a note about today's meeting"

Option B: OllMCP (Local AI Models)

If Claude Desktop was configured above, you can run the following to detect joplin-mcp automatically by OllMCP (Ollama served agents).

# Install ollmcp
pip install ollmcp

# Run with auto-discovery and your preferred Ollama model, such as:
ollmcp --auto-discovery --model qwen3:4b

Example Usage

Once configured, you can ask your AI assistant:

• "List all my notebooks" - See your Joplin organization
• "Find notes about Python programming" - Search your knowledge base
• "Create a meeting note for today's standup" - Quick note creation
• "Tag my recent AI notes as 'important'" - Organize with tags
• "Show me my todos" - Find task items with find_notes(task=True)

Tool Permissions

The setup script offers 3 security levels:

• Read (always enabled): Browse and search your notes safely
• Write (optional): Create new notes, notebooks, and tags
• Update (optional): Modify existing content
• Delete (optional): Remove content permanently

Choose the level that matches your comfort and use case.

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Advanced Configuration

Alternative Installation (Development)

For developers or users who want the latest features:

macOS/Linux:

git clone https://github.com/alondmnt/joplin-mcp.git
cd joplin-mcp
./install.sh

Windows:

git clone https://github.com/alondmnt/joplin-mcp.git
cd joplin-mcp
install.bat

Manual Configuration

If you prefer manual setup or the script doesn't work:

1. Create Configuration File

Create joplin-mcp.json in your project directory:

{
  "token": "your_api_token_here",
  "host": "localhost", 
  "port": 41184,
  "timeout": 30,
  "verify_ssl": false
}

2. Claude Desktop Configuration

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "joplin": {
      "command": "joplin-mcp-server",
      "env": {
        "JOPLIN_TOKEN": "your_token_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. OllMCP Manual Configuration

# Set environment variable
export JOPLIN_TOKEN="your_token_here"

# Run with manual server configuration
ollmcp --server "joplin:joplin-mcp-server" --model qwen3:4b

Tool Permission Configuration

Fine-tune which operations the AI can perform by editing your config:

{
  "tools": {
    "create_note": true,
    "update_note": true, 
    "delete_note": false,
    "create_notebook": true,
    "delete_notebook": false,
    "create_tag": true,
    "update_tag": false,
    "delete_tag": false
  }
}

Environment Variables

Alternative to JSON configuration:

export JOPLIN_TOKEN="your_api_token_here"
export JOPLIN_HOST="localhost"
export JOPLIN_PORT="41184"
export JOPLIN_TIMEOUT="30"

HTTP Transport Support

The server supports both STDIO and HTTP transports:

# STDIO (default)
joplin-mcp-server

# HTTP transport 
python run_fastmcp_server.py --transport http --port 8000

Claude Desktop HTTP config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "joplin": {
      "transport": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Configuration Reference

Basic Settings

Option	Default	Description
token	required	Joplin API authentication token
host	localhost	Joplin server hostname
port	41184	Joplin Web Clipper port
timeout	30	Request timeout in seconds
verify_ssl	false	SSL certificate verification

Tool Permissions

Option	Default	Description
tools.create_note	true	Allow creating new notes
tools.update_note	true	Allow modifying existing notes
tools.delete_note	true	Allow deleting notes
tools.create_notebook	true	Allow creating new notebooks
tools.update_notebook	false	Allow modifying notebook titles
tools.delete_notebook	true	Allow deleting notebooks
tools.create_tag	true	Allow creating new tags
tools.update_tag	false	Allow modifying tag titles
tools.delete_tag	true	Allow deleting tags
tools.tag_note	true	Allow adding tags to notes
tools.untag_note	true	Allow removing tags from notes
tools.find_notes	true	Allow text search across notes (with task filtering)
tools.find_notes_with_tag	true	Allow finding notes by tag (with task filtering)
tools.find_notes_in_notebook	true	Allow finding notes by notebook (with task filtering)
tools.get_all_notes	false	Allow getting all notes (disabled by default - can fill context window)
tools.get_note	true	Allow getting specific notes
tools.list_notebooks	true	Allow listing all notebooks
tools.list_tags	true	Allow listing all tags
tools.get_tags_by_note	true	Allow getting tags for specific notes
tools.ping_joplin	true	Allow testing server connectivity

Content Exposure (Privacy Settings)

Option	Default	Description
content_exposure.search_results	"preview"	Content visibility in search results: "none", "preview", "full"
content_exposure.individual_notes	"full"	Content visibility for individual notes: "none", "preview", "full"
content_exposure.listings	"none"	Content visibility in note listings: "none", "preview", "full"
content_exposure.max_preview_length	200	Maximum length of content previews (characters)

Project Structure

• run_fastmcp_server.py - FastMCP server launcher
• src/joplin_mcp/ - Main package directory
  • fastmcp_server.py - Server implementation with 21 tools (by default)
  • models.py - Data models and schemas
  • config.py - Configuration management
• docs/ - API documentation
• tests/ - Test suite

Testing

Test your connection:

# For pip install
joplin-mcp-server

# For development  
python run_fastmcp_server.py

You should see:

Starting Joplin FastMCP Server...
Successfully connected to Joplin!
Found X notebooks, Y notes, Z tags
FastMCP server starting...
Available tools: 21 tools ready

Complete Tool Reference

Tool	Permission	Description
Finding Notes
find_notes	Read	Full-text search across all notes (supports task filtering)
find_notes_with_tag	Read	Find notes with specific tag (supports task filtering)
find_notes_in_notebook	Read	Find notes in specific notebook (supports task filtering)
get_all_notes	Read	Get all notes, most recent first (disabled by default)
get_note	Read	Get specific note by ID
get_links	Read	Extract links to other notes from a note
Managing Notes
create_note	Write	Create new notes
update_note	Update	Modify existing notes
delete_note	Delete	Remove notes
Managing Notebooks
list_notebooks	Read	Browse all notebooks
create_notebook	Write	Create new notebooks
update_notebook	Update	Modify notebook titles
delete_notebook	Delete	Remove notebooks
Managing Tags
list_tags	Read	View all available tags
create_tag	Write	Create new tags
update_tag	Update	Modify tag titles
delete_tag	Delete	Remove tags
get_tags_by_note	Read	List tags on specific note
Tag-Note Relationships
tag_note	Update	Add tags to notes
untag_note	Update	Remove tags from notes
System Tools
ping_joplin	Read	Test connectivity