MCP Note Taker (POC)

A proof-of-concept implementation of a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for AI assistant note-taking, featuring custom tools and resources for managing notes.

Overview

This project demonstrates how to create and use a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides note-taking capabilities to AI assistants (such as Claude, Cursor, and others supporting MCP). The server includes:

- A tool to add notes
- A resource to fetch the latest note
- A prompt to summarize all notes

All notes are stored in a local notes.txt file in the project directory.

Requirements

- Python 3.11
- Required packages listed in requirements.txt

Installation and Setup

1. Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/mcp-server-poc.git
cd mcp-server-poc

2. Create and activate a virtual environment:

# Init uv package manager 
uv init
Create a Python 3.11 virtual environment
uv venv
Activate on Windows
 .venv\Scripts\activate
Activate on macOS/Linux
source venv/bin/activate

3. Install the required packages:

uv pip install -r requirements.txt

4. (Optional) Install MCP CLI tools if needed for development or alternative integrations:

uv add "mcp[cli]"

Running the Application

To run the MCP server:

uv run mcp

The server will start and wait for connections using the stdio transport method.

Integrating with Cursor

To use this MCP server with Cursor IDE:

1. Create or edit the file ~/.cursor/mcp.json (on Windows: C:\Users\<username>\.cursor\mcp.json) with the following content:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-server": {
            "command": "python", 
            "args": [
                "ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/main.py"
            ]
        }
    }
}

2. Replace the path with the absolute path to your main.py file.
- On Windows, use double backslashes: C:\\Users\\username\\path\\to\\main.py
- On macOS/Linux, use regular slashes: /Users/username/path/to/main.py

3. Restart Cursor completely (including ending any background processes) to load the MCP server.

Features

Tools

- add_note(note: str): Adds a note to the notes.txt file and returns a confirmation message.

Resources

- notes://latest: Returns the latest note from the notes.txt file, or a message if there are no notes yet.

Prompts

- note_summary_prompt(): Generates a prompt asking the AI to summarize all current notes in notes.txt.

Technical Details

- All notes are stored in a plain text file named notes.txt in the project root. This file is created automatically if it does not exist.
- The server uses the Model Context Protocol SDK and the mcp[cli] dependency.

Windows Binary Mode Fix

If you use stdio transport on Windows, you may need to set binary mode for stdin/stdout. See the MCP documentation for details.

Troubleshooting

- Verify that all required packages are installed (pip list to check)
- Check that the absolute path in the configuration file is correct
- Make sure the MCP server is running with the proper version of Python (3.11)
- If you encounter issues, try running the MCP server directly to see any error output

License

MIT License

Acknowledgements

- This project uses the Model Context Protocol SDK