Let Claude Code read your notes with MCP Jot, a Mac note-capture app, now ships a local MCP server that lets Claude Code, Codex and Cursor list, search, read and add notes stored as Markdown files in ~/Documents/Jot, installed via the command `claude mcp add --scope user jot -- /usr/local/bin/jot mcp`. The server runs over stdio with no account or API key and exposes seven tools — list_jots, search_jots, read_jot, add_jot, set_done, archive_jot and tag_jot — plus an eighth, jot_image, for clients supporting MCP Apps. Author Mohak Bajaj writes that agents deliberately cannot delete notes: "Archive covers the real need: the jot leaves the inbox, and the file stays in the folder. blog https://sayjot.xyz/blog · · Mohak Bajaj Let Claude Code read your notes with MCP I save a lot of small things during the day. An error message from a log. A line from the docs. An idea I had while reviewing a PR. Later, when I am in Claude Code, those notes are exactly the context I want it to have. Pasting them in by hand is slow. So Jot, my Mac capture app, ships an MCP server. With one command, Claude Code can list, search and read your notes, and add new ones. This post covers the setup for Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, what each tool does, and why there is no delete tool. What you get Jot saves each note as a Markdown file in a folder, ~/Documents/Jot by default. You select text in any app and tap Shift twice to save it, or you add one from the terminal. jot mcp is a local MCP server for that folder. It runs on your Mac over stdio. There is no account and no API key, and the notes do not leave the Mac unless your agent sends them to its model. The Jot app does not need to be running. Step 1: install Jot and link the CLI Download Jot from sayjot.xyz/download https://sayjot.xyz/download and open it once. The CLI lives inside the app, at /Applications/Jot.app/Contents/Helpers/jot . There is no separate package to install. To run it as jot , link it into /usr/local/bin . Settings → Vault & Agents → Terminal command → Link does it for you. macOS may ask for your password. Or run: ln -sf /Applications/Jot.app/Contents/Helpers/jot /usr/local/bin/jot If you skip this step, use the full path inside the app in place of /usr/local/bin/jot in the commands below. Step 2: add the server to Claude Code This adds Jot for all your projects: claude mcp add --scope user jot -- /usr/local/bin/jot mcp Start a new Claude Code session and run /mcp . You should see jot in the list, with its tools. Codex and Cursor For Codex: codex mcp add jot -- /usr/local/bin/jot mcp Cursor, Claude Desktop and other clients take a JSON config. Settings → Vault & Agents → MCP server → Copy config puts it on your clipboard: { "mcpServers": { "jot": { "command": "/usr/local/bin/jot", "args": "mcp" } } } In Cursor, paste it into ~/.cursor/mcp.json for every project, or .cursor/mcp.json in one project. What the tools do | Tool | What it does | Writes? | |---|---|---| | list jots | List jots: id, status, title with tags, file path. Filter by tag, section, done, archived, limit. | No | | search jots | Case-insensitive search of open jots by body, tags, source app and URL. | No | | read jot | One whole file, front matter and body, plus absolute paths to its images. | No | | add jot | Create a jot. The first line is its title. Optional tags and section. | Yes | | set done | Mark a jot done, or open again. | Yes | | archive jot | Take a jot out of the inbox. The file stays in the folder. | Yes | | tag jot | Add tags. Existing tags stay. | Yes | Clients that support MCP Apps also get an inbox view, and an eighth tool, jot image , that the view uses to show a jot's images. Other clients see the seven tools above. Writes go to the same Markdown files the app shows. The server changes the file with an atomic write, and the app sees the change because it watches the folder. If Claude adds a jot, it shows in your inbox a moment later. Why there is no delete tool An agent can add, tag, finish and archive. It cannot delete. That is on purpose. Agents make mistakes, and they act fast. A prompt like "clean up my old notes" should never end with files gone. Archive covers the real need: the jot leaves the inbox, and the file stays in the folder. If an agent archives the wrong thing, you can get it back. The worst case is a mess you can see and fix, not lost notes. Deleting is still easy for you. It is one action in the app, and the file goes to a trash folder first. Prompts that work well You don't need to name the tools. Ask in plain words, and Claude picks the tool: - "Search my jots for anything about the billing migration and summarize what I saved." - "List my open jots tagged todo. Which ones are about this repo?" - "Read the jot I saved from the Postgres docs and apply that fix to db/pool.ts." - "Add a jot: follow up on the flaky upload test. Tag it todo and work." - "Go through my open jots from this week, tag each one by project, and mark the ones we finished today as done." Two tips. Search matches substrings, so short, specific words work better than a long phrase. And search only looks at open jots, so ask for list jots with archived set to true when you want old ones. Point it at another folder The server reads the folder you set in Jot's Settings. --vault