mcp-recall-md 0.4.0

Local semantic search for markdown notes — MCP server

mcp-recall-md

Local semantic search for your markdown notes — via MCP.

graph LR
    A["<b>.md files</b><br><i>Obsidian · Logseq · plain md</i>"] -- "watch + index" --> B["<b>mcp-recall-md</b><br><i>local vector store</i>"]
    C["<b>AI client</b><br><i>Claude · Cursor · Windsurf</i>"] -- "MCP search" --> B
    style A fill:#f9f4eb,stroke:#c9a96e,color:#333
    style B fill:#e8f0fe,stroke:#4a86c8,color:#333
    style C fill:#e8f5e9,stroke:#5b9a5b,color:#333

"Search my notes about Kubernetes networking"

→ finds kubernetes-networking.md (similarity: 0.53) — even though you phrased it differently than the note

• Search by meaning, not keywords — finds notes even when your wording doesn't match
• 100% offline — no API keys, no cloud, nothing leaves your machine
• Zero config — point at your folders, restart your AI client, done
• Real-time sync — file watcher picks up changes instantly, re-embeds only what changed

---

Quick start

Add to your MCP client config and restart:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-recall-md": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-recall-md", "--vaults", "C:/Users/you/notes"]
    }
  }
}

Config file location: .mcp.json (Claude Code) · claude_desktop_config.json (Claude Desktop) · Cursor / Windsurf MCP settings

That's it. Your notes are searchable.

---

Installation

The quick start above uses uvx (recommended). Other options:

pip

pip install mcp-recall-md

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-recall-md": {
      "command": "mcp-recall-md",
      "args": ["--vaults", "C:/Users/you/notes"]
    }
  }
}

Standalone .exe (no Python needed)

1. Download mcp-recall-md.exe from the latest release
2. Put it somewhere permanent (e.g. C:\Tools\mcp-recall-md\)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-recall-md": {
      "command": "C:/Tools/mcp-recall-md/mcp-recall-md.exe",
      "args": ["--vaults", "C:/Users/you/notes"]
    }
  }
}

---

Configuration

Multiple vaults

List all folders — each is indexed independently:

"args": ["--vaults", "C:/notes/work", "C:/notes/personal", "C:/docs"]

.recallignore

Drop a .recallignore in any vault root to exclude files. Standard .gitignore syntax:

.obsidian/
_templates/
drafts/

CLI flags

Flag	Default	Description
--vaults	(none)	Folders to index and watch
--db-path	~/.mcp-recall-md/db	ChromaDB storage location
--verbose	off	Debug logging to stderr

---

Tools

Your AI assistant gets these tools automatically via MCP:

Tool	Description
search	Find notes by meaning — returns ranked results with similarity scores and file paths
status	Show indexed article count and watched vaults
index	Manually store an article (for use without --vaults)
remove	Delete an article from the index

Most users only interact with search — everything else is automatic.

---

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
Search returns nothing	Check that --vaults points to folders with .md files
First run is slow	Embedding model (~80 MB) downloads once on first use
Need to debug	Add --verbose, check ~/.mcp-recall-md/server.log
Force re-index	Delete ~/.mcp-recall-md/db and restart

Logs: ~/.mcp-recall-md/server.log (5 MB max, 3 rotated backups)

---

Limitations

• Single-chunk embedding — large files (10k+ words) may search less precisely than shorter notes
• English-optimized — other languages work but with lower accuracy

---

License

MIT