Dossier Mcp

dossier-mcp

AI agents forget everything between sessions, and Claude's built-in memory is project-scoped. dossier-mcp gives your agent a persistent, cross-project memory: architectural decisions, ongoing priorities, and context that doesn't belong to any one project — stored as Markdown in a vault you can read and edit via the Model Context Protocol.

Built and tested with Claude Code. Any MCP-compatible coding agent should work — the server uses standard stdio transport. Registration commands below are Claude Code-specific; other clients will have their own configuration method.

Philosophy

This tool is designed for agent-as-author use: Claude writes and maintains notes in your vault, building up a persistent cross-session and cross-project memory that you can optionally inspect in Obsidian or any Markdown viewer.

This is the inverse of tools like Obsidian MCP, where the agent reads notes you wrote. Here, the agent is the primary author. You direct conversations, the agent captures context, decisions, and knowledge — and picks it all back up next session without you repeating yourself. The result is a lightweight RAG you didn't have to build: structured, searchable, human-readable, and maintained by the agent as a side effect of working with you.

Context persists across sessions and projects — architectural decisions, ongoing priorities, research that doesn't belong to any one repo — all of it available in any new session without rebuilding from scratch.

Setup

cd server
pnpm install

MCP Configuration

The following commands are for Claude Code. Other MCP clients will have their own way to register a stdio server — point them at the same binary with NOTES_DIR set.

Dev mode (no build step)

Uses tsx to run TypeScript directly. Slower startup, no build required.

claude mcp add -s user dossier-mcp \
  -e NOTES_DIR=/path/to/your/vault \
  -- npx tsx /path/to/dossier-mcp/server/src/mcp-entry.ts

Production mode

Build first, then run the compiled output with plain node.

cd server && pnpm build

claude mcp add -s user dossier-mcp \
  -e NOTES_DIR=/path/to/your/vault \
  -- node /path/to/dossier-mcp/server/dist/mcp-entry.js

Updating an existing registration

claude mcp add will error if dossier-mcp is already registered. Remove it first:

claude mcp remove dossier-mcp

Then re-add with the command above.

Environment variables

| Variable | Description | |---|---| | NOTES_DIR | Absolute path to the vault root (e.g. /path/to/your/vault) | | DOSSIER_EXCLUDE_TAGS | Comma-separated tags to exclude from search_notes, list_notes, and list_todos results by default (case-insensitive). Overrides the built-in default (archived,historical). Set to an empty string to disable default exclusion for this vault. Callers can still override per request via each tool's exclude_tags param ([] includes everything; a list replaces the default). Notes remain directly reachable via get_note regardless. |

profile.md

get_vault_context reads $NOTES_DIR/profile.md — a free-form markdown file at the vault root that serves as the bootstrap document for the AI. Think of it as an AGENTS.md for your notes: when the MCP server is activated, reading this file first orients the agent to the vault — how it's organized, what it contains, and how to navigate it effectively.

What you put here is entirely up to you and your use case. Some possibilities:

• Personal context — who you are, current projects, working preferences
• Vault structure — how notes are organized, what naming conventions mean, which folders exist
• Usage instructions — how the AI should interact with your notes, what to prioritize, what to avoid
• Domain context — background knowledge the AI needs to be useful in your specific domain

The file uses standard frontmatter followed by markdown:

---
title: Vault Profile
date: '2026-01-01'
tags:
  - profile
---
# My Vault

Brief description of what this vault contains and who it's for.

## Structure

How notes are organized — folders, naming conventions, key entry points.

## How to Use This Vault

Instructions for the AI: what to read first, how to search effectively,
any conventions to follow when creating or updating notes.

If profile.md doesn't exist, get_vault_context returns a clear error message rather than failing silently.

Tools exposed to Claude

| Tool | Purpose | |---|---| | get_vault_context | Read $NOTES_DIR/profile.md — vault bootstrap document; read this first | | list_notes | List notes; optional path prefix filter (e.g. projects/startup) | | get_note | Fetch a note by slug | | search_notes | Full-text keyword search | | list_todos | List notes with open - [ ] checkboxes; optional path prefix filter | | create_note | Create a note; path sets slug; defaults to inbox/ | | update_note | Overwrite an existing note by slug (regenerates the whole body) | | append_to_section | Append content under a named ## heading without regenerating the note | | edit_note | Exact-string find/replace in a note's body; match must be unique unless replace_all is set | | edit_frontmatter | Surgical frontmatter-only edit — set scalar fields (e.g. status) + add/remove tags/related — without regenerating the body | | move_note | Move/rename a note to a new slug; updates related references and inline [[wiki-links]] in other notes | | delete_note | Delete a note by slug |

Resources exposed to Claude

MCP resources are read-only and can be enumerated by clients at startup, making them useful for discoverability.

| Resource | Purpose | |---|---| | vault://context | Vault bootstrap document (profile.md). Read this first to orient to the vault. | | notes://index | Index of all notes with titles, tags, dates, and links to each note:// URI. | | note://{slug} | Individual note content by slug (e.g. note://projects/startup). Discover slugs via notes://index. |

Development

cd server
pnpm test         # run tests
pnpm build        # compile TypeScript to dist/

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: ethanaubuchon
• Source: ethanaubuchon/dossier-mcp
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.