An unofficial, opinionated MCP server for Bear Notes — built around relevance-ranked search instead of substring matching. Results come ranked across titles, bodies, and hierarchical tags, with snippets and combinable filters (tag, date, pinned). Reads run direct against Bear's SQLite database — no Bear app required for queries.
Writes route through Bear's own URL handler — atomic and validated by Bear. Offline-first: no network calls, no telemetry, all processing on your Mac. Works with any MCP client — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Cursor. Ships as a one-click .mcpb extension or a standalone npm package.
Example prompts:
Find the deep-dive I wrote on export pipelines, somewhere under #engineering/
Append today's decisions to the 'Decisions' section of my Weekly Ops note
Pull every note under #research/llm-evals into a survey outline
Find my notes tagged #blog/drafts and draft this week's post outline
First-time install walkthrough for Claude Code, Codex CLI, and ChatGPT.
Read-only by default — flip Edit Mode for writes. 4 tools always on (search, open, find untagged, list tags); 8 more in Edit Mode for create, edit, attach, tag, archive
Relevance-ranked search across titles, bodies, and tags — finds the right note, not just the ones that contained your literal words
Date-based search with relative dates ("yesterday", "last week", "start of last month")
Hierarchical tag management — view tags as a tree with note counts; rename or delete a tag across the whole library
Surgical writes — append at a specific heading or replace a section without rewriting the whole note
File attachments — attach images, PDFs, and documents up to 25 MB; symlinks rejected for safety
New note convention (opt-in) — place tags right after the title instead of at the bottom
Local-first — direct read-only SQLite reads, native node:sqlite, no network calls, no telemetry
[!NOTE]
Complete privacy (except the data you send to your AI provider when using an AI assistant, of course): this server makes no external connections. All processing happens locally on your Mac using Bear's own database and API. There is no extra telemetry, usage statistics or anything like that.
👤 Who is this for
This is an unofficial, opinionated alternative to the native Bear MCP. It fits when:
You have years of notes and substring search isn't enough. Search ranks results by relevance — titles, bodies, and tag matches across the whole library — so the right note rises to the top, even when your phrasing has drifted.
You bounce between MCP clients. Stdio transport works with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini, Cursor, Windsurf — anything that speaks MCP. No per-client glue code, no lock-in.
You want to query without pulling Bear forward. Reads run straight against Bear's SQLite database. No need to keep Bear open — or even running — for a quick lookup mid-conversation. (Writes still route through Bear, atomically.)
You manage tags across the whole library. Rename or delete a tag everywhere it appears, atomically. Hierarchical tag matching in search rolls up subtags automatically — work that's tedious through Bear's UI alone.
You care about supply-chain hygiene. Native node:sqlite — no unsigned third-party binaries, no Gatekeeper hassles. Network-free server: no remote-fetch tools, no prompt-injection surface.
If you have a small library and just want a quick notes integration, you may not need this yet.
More installation options and local development setup — NPM.md
🛠️ Tools
bear-open-note - Read the full text content of a Bear note by its ID or title, including OCR'd text from attached images and PDFs
bear-create-note - Create a new note in your Bear library with optional title, content, and tags
bear-search-notes - Find notes by relevance across titles, body, and OCR-extracted text from attached images and PDFs. Use a phrase or a few keywords describing what you're looking for; results are ranked by relevance and each includes a context snippet. Also supports tag, date-range, and pinned-only filters — combine with a search term or use them on their own to browse.
bear-add-text - Insert text at the beginning or end of a Bear note, or within a specific section identified by its header
bear-replace-text - Replace content in an existing Bear note — either the full body or a specific section.
bear-add-file - Attach a local file (image, PDF, document) to an existing Bear note by its ID or title. Bear extracts text from images and PDFs via OCR, making attachment content searchable.
bear-list-tags - List all tags in your Bear library as a hierarchical tree with note counts
bear-find-untagged-notes - Find notes in your Bear library that have no tags assigned
bear-add-tag - Add one or more tags to an existing Bear note
bear-archive-note - Archive a Bear note to remove it from active lists without deleting it
bear-rename-tag - Rename a tag across all notes in your Bear library
bear-delete-tag - Delete a tag from all notes in your Bear library without affecting the notes
bear-capabilities - Report the current server mode (read-only or Edit Mode) and how to unlock additional capabilities
⚙️ Configuration
Debug Logging
Enable verbose logging for troubleshooting.
Claude Desktop: Settings → Extensions → Configure (next to Bear Notes) → toggle "Debug Logging" → Save → Restart Claude
Standalone MCP server: set environment variable UI_DEBUG_TOGGLE=true
New Note Convention
By default, Bear places tags at the bottom of a note when created via API. Enable this option to place tags right after the title instead, separated by a horizontal rule.
┌──────────────────────────────┐
│ # Meeting Notes │ ← Note title
│ #work #meetings │ ← Tags right after title
│ │
│ --- │ ← Separator
│ │
│ Lorem Ipsum... │ ← Note body
└──────────────────────────────┘
[!TIP]
This convention is disabled by default — it's opt-in so existing behavior is preserved.
Claude Desktop: Settings → Extensions → Configure (next to Bear Notes) → toggle "New Note Convention" → Save → Restart Claude
Standalone MCP server: set environment variable UI_ENABLE_NEW_NOTE_CONVENTION=true
Example standalone configuration with the convention enabled:
Edit Mode unlocks all 8 write tools: create notes, add or replace text (full body or by section header), attach files, manage tags, archive. When off, the server is fully read-only — tools/list returns the 4 read tools (bear-open-note, bear-search-notes, bear-find-untagged-notes, bear-list-tags) plus bear-capabilities (a discovery tool that surfaces this unlock guidance for clients that drop the MCP instructions field). The LLM cannot mutate your library by mistake.
[!TIP]
Edit Mode is off by default so the server is provably read-only out of the box. Turn it on when you're ready for writes — and only when.
Claude Desktop: Settings → Extensions → Configure (next to Bear Notes) → toggle "Edit Mode" → Save → Restart Claude
Standalone MCP server: set environment variable UI_ENABLE_CONTENT_REPLACEMENT=true
Example standalone configuration with Edit Mode enabled:
The agent harness performance optimization system. Skills, instincts, memory, security, and research-first development for Claude Code, Codex, Opencode, Cursor and beyond.
Claude Code is an agentic coding tool that lives in your terminal, understands your codebase, and helps you code faster by executing routine tasks, explaining complex code, and handling git workflows - all through natural language commands.
