MCP Outline Server

📢 Official Outline MCP Server Available

Outline now ships an official MCP server — we recommend using it. Read the docs.

A Model Context Protocol server for interacting with Outline document management.

Features

• Document operations: Search, read, create, edit, archive documents
• Collections: List, create, manage document hierarchies
• Comments: Add and view threaded comments
• Backlinks: Find documents referencing a specific document
• MCP Resources: Direct content access via URIs (outline://document/{id}, outline://collection/{id}, etc.)
• Automatic rate limiting: Transparent handling of API limits with retry logic

Prerequisites

Before using this MCP server, you need:

• An Outline account (cloud hosted or self-hosted)
• API key from Outline web UI: Settings → API Keys → Create New
• Python 3.10+ (for non-Docker installations)

Getting your API key: Log into Outline → Click your profile → Settings → API Keys → "New API Key". Copy the generated token.

Quick Start

One-Click Install

Click a button to install with interactive API key prompt:

Manual Install

Install with uv (recommended), pip, or Docker:

uvx mcp-outline          # using uv
pip install mcp-outline   # using pip

# using Docker
docker run -e OUTLINE_API_KEY=<your-key> ghcr.io/vortiago/mcp-outline:latest

Then add to your MCP client config (works with VS Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, and others):

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "id": "outline_api_key",
      "type": "promptString",
      "description": "Enter OUTLINE_API_KEY",
      "password": true
    },
    {
      "id": "outline_api_url",
      "type": "promptString",
      "description": "Outline API URL (optional, for self-hosted)",
      "password": false
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "mcp-outline": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-outline"],
      "env": {
        "OUTLINE_API_KEY": "${input:outline_api_key}",
        "OUTLINE_API_URL": "${input:outline_api_url}"
      }
    }
  }
}

claude mcp add mcp-outline uvx mcp-outline

Installing the repo as a plugin instead also bundles the outline-explorer agent (fast read-only wiki exploration) and the outline skill (Outline conventions: mermaidjs fences, document structure, editing workflows).

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-outline": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-outline"],
      "env": {
        "OUTLINE_API_KEY": "<YOUR_API_KEY>",
        "OUTLINE_API_URL": "<YOUR_OUTLINE_URL>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Setup guides for more clients: Docker (HTTP), Cline, Codex, Windsurf, and others

Configuration

Access Control

Read-only mode takes precedence over disable-delete. See Configuration Guide for details.

Tools

Note: Tool availability depends on your access control settings.

Search & Discovery

• search_documents(query, collection_id?, limit?, offset?, statusFilter?) - Search documents by keywords with pagination. Defaults to published documents; pass statusFilter with draft, archived, and/or published to include other states
• list_recently_updated_documents(date_filter?, collection_id?, status_filter?, limit?, offset?) - List documents by most recent change, newest first (e.g. "what changed this week"). date_filter windows by last change: day/week/month/year (default week). Defaults to published documents
• list_collections() - List all collections
• get_collection_structure(collection_id) - Get document hierarchy within a collection
• get_document_id_from_title(query, collection_id?) - Find document ID by title search

Document Reading

• read_document(document_id, offset?, limit?) - Get document content with optional line-range pagination
• export_document(document_id) - Export document as markdown

Document Navigation

• get_document_toc(document_id) - Get table of