apple-notes-search

name

apple-notes-search

description

Search, recall, and discover connections across the user's own Apple Notes via the apple-notes MCP server — semantic + keyword search, Swanson-ABC bridges, entity threads, related-notes, and cited synthesis over everything they've ever written. Use AGGRESSIVELY whenever the user wants to find, recall, look up, or "remember" something from their notes ("search my notes for X", "what did I write about X", "find that note about X", "did I ever note Y"), surface non-obvious connections ("find connections/bridges across my notes", "what links X and Y in my notes", "show related notes"), or synthesize a position ("synthesize/summarize what I think about X from my notes", "pull together everything I've written on X"). Also triggers on "index my Apple Notes", note tags/folders queries, and "what's connected to" questions over personal notes. Do NOT use for creating reminders or for non-Apple-Notes note systems.

Apple Notes search & connection-discovery

apple-notes is an MCP server for semantic search and connection-discovery across the user's own Apple Notes — hybrid search, Swanson-ABC bridges, entity threads, and cited synthesis over everything they've written. Embeddings, search, BM25, clustering, and bridges run on-device; only synthesis generation calls an LLM (local OR cloud, the user's choice).

This skill covers (1) the one-time setup you must walk the user through, and (2) which tool to reach for, since the server exposes many.

First: is the MCP connected?

If apple-notes tools are not available, the server isn't registered yet — do the Setup below before anything else. If tools exist but a search returns "not indexed" or empty, run index-notes first (see Ranking caveats).

Setup (walk the user through this — it's the skill's real value)

The server reads Apple Notes' SQLite store directly, so the bun binary needs Full Disk Access. Steps, in order:

1. Install bun (if absent): curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash
2. Clone + install deps:

   git clone https://github.com/connerkward/mcp-apple-notes
   cd mcp-apple-notes && bun install
   

3. Grant Full Disk Access to bun. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access, click +, and add ~/.bun/bin/bun (press Cmd+Shift+G in the file picker and paste the path). Without this the server cannot read NoteStore.sqlite and every call fails with a permissions error. (bun install's postinstall tries to open this pane automatically.)
4. Register the MCP server (pick the user's client):
   • Claude Code: claude mcp add apple-notes -- bun /absolute/path/to/mcp-apple-notes/index.ts --stdio
   • Claude Desktop: add to claude_desktop_config.json:

     { "mcpServers": { "apple-notes": {
         "command": "/Users/<you>/.bun/bin/bun",
         "args": ["/Users/<you>/mcp-apple-notes/index.ts", "--stdio"] } } }
     

   • As a Claude Code plugin (bundles this skill too): /plugin marketplace add connerkward/ckw-skills then /plugin install apple-notes@connerkward.
5. Restart the client, then tell the user to ask "Index my Apple Notes" (or call index-notes). First index of ~1,800 notes takes a few seconds.

Tool map — which tool for which job

Tool	Use when
index-notes	First run, or to force a rebuild. Background job with live progress.
search-notes	Default search. Hybrid semantic + BM25, re-ranked. Optional folder, modifiedAfter, modifiedBefore. "What did I write about X."
find-notes	Exact substring match (like the Apple Notes search box). Use when the user wants a literal string, not meaning. Optional folder, date range.
get-note	Fetch one full note by title (fuzzy fallback).
list-notes	Notes by recency. Optional folder, date range, limit.
list-folders	All folders + note counts.
list-tags / search-by-tag	#hashtag inventory / notes carrying a given tag.
related-notes	Notes related to a given one via shared tags, [[wikilinks]], and vector similarity. "Show me related notes."
bridge-notes	Swanson-ABC bridges — non-obvious connections: pairs (A, C) not directly similar but both strongly tied to a shared intermediary B. "Find non-obvious connections across my notes." Optional folder, limit. No LLM.
feed	Ranked evidence-first connection stream (bridges + abstraction pairs + entity threads) as JSON. Optional limit.
entity-notes / list-entities	"Where else do I talk about Mercedes?" Entity chips → notes by mention weight. Needs the optional entity graph db (~/.mcp-apple-notes/layered_graph.db); if absent these report how to generate it.
get-tables	Pull pipe/tab tables out of a note.
create-note / update-note	Create or edit a note.
check-changes	Did notes change since last index? (does not trigger re-index)
index-health	Sync status, last-indexed time, note count. Run this if results seem stale.

For "synthesize what I think about X" the synthesis lives in the web app endpoint (GET /api/synthesize?q= at http://localhost:3741/ when run with bun index.ts), which writes a grounded answer with inline [n] citations back to source notes.

Ranking caveats (state these when results look off)

• Index before the first search. No index → empty/garbage results; run index-notes.
• Auto re-index: each search does ~1ms change detection and kicks ONE background incremental index if notes changed — search returns immediately from the current index and catches up when the job lands. If a just-edited note is missing, it's the catch-up lag; re-run the search.
• Score: score = RRF(vector, BM25) × title_boost × recency_factor.
• Temporal queries (recent, latest, today) auto-shift to a 1-day recency half-life at 70% weight; normal queries keep relevance primary (90-day half-life, 10%).
• Synthesis is the only cloud-capable part. It needs an LLM: local via LM Studio / Ollama (SYNTH_BASE_URL=http://localhost:1234/v1 SYNTH_MODEL=<model> OPENAI_API_KEY=local, notes stay on-device) or real OpenAI (funded OPENAI_API_KEY, defaults to gpt-4o-mini). Everything else — embeddings, search, BM25, clustering, bridges, entities — is on-device.

Credits

Fork of RafalWilinski/mcp-apple-notes; this fork reads SQLite + protobuf directly and adds bridges, entities, feed, and synthesis.