# Bear Notes MCP (MCP server)

> Bear Notes MCP is an MCP server that adds productivity tools to AI assistants such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor. MCP Server for Bear note taking app available as Claude Desktop extension or standalone server for any other… It has 205 GitHub stars, is released under the Apache-2.0 license and runs locally with npx -y bear-notes-mcp.

An unofficial, opinionated MCP server for Bear Notes — built around relevance-ranked search instead of substring matching. Results come ranked across titles, bodies, and hierarchical tags, with snippets and combinable filters (tag, date, pinned). Reads run direct against Bear's SQLite database — no Bear app required for queries.

## Key facts

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Repository | https://github.com/vasylenko/bear-notes-mcp |
| GitHub stars | 205 |
| License | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | TypeScript |
| Transport | stdio |
| Packages | npm: bear-notes-mcp |
| Remote URL | none |
| Needs API key | no |
| Official | no |
| Works with | Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code |
| Category | Productivity |
| Latest release | v3.0.1 (May 12, 2026) |
| Last commit | Jun 28, 2026 |

## Install

### Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bear-notes-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "bear-notes-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "UI_ENABLE_NEW_NOTE_CONVENTION": "your-value",
        "UI_ENABLE_CONTENT_REPLACEMENT": "your-value"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Settings > Developer > Edit Config. macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/, Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\. Restart Claude Desktop afterwards.

### Claude Code

```sh
claude mcp add --env UI_ENABLE_NEW_NOTE_CONVENTION=your-value --env UI_ENABLE_CONTENT_REPLACEMENT=your-value --transport stdio bear-notes-mcp -- npx -y bear-notes-mcp
```

### Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json)

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bear-notes-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "bear-notes-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "UI_ENABLE_NEW_NOTE_CONVENTION": "your-value",
        "UI_ENABLE_CONTENT_REPLACEMENT": "your-value"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Project file; use ~/.cursor/mcp.json to enable it in every project.

### VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json)

```json
{
  "servers": {
    "bear-notes-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "bear-notes-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "UI_ENABLE_NEW_NOTE_CONVENTION": "your-value",
        "UI_ENABLE_CONTENT_REPLACEMENT": "your-value"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Config formats checked against the official docs on 2026-10-07.

## Environment variables

- `UI_ENABLE_NEW_NOTE_CONVENTION`: Shown in the README's example configuration.
- `UI_ENABLE_CONTENT_REPLACEMENT`: Shown in the README's example configuration.

## Tools

- `bear-open-note`: Read the full text content of a Bear note by its ID or title, including OCR'd text from attached images and PDFs
- `bear-create-note`: Create a new note in your Bear library with optional title, content, and tags
- `bear-search-notes`: Find notes by relevance across titles, body, and OCR-extracted text from attached images and PDFs.
- `bear-add-text`: Insert text at the beginning or end of a Bear note, or within a specific section identified by its header.
- `bear-replace-text`: Replace content in an existing Bear note — either the full body or a specific section.
- `bear-add-file`: Attach a local file (image, PDF, document) to an existing Bear note by its ID or title.
- `bear-list-tags`: List all tags in your Bear library as a hierarchical tree with note counts
- `bear-find-untagged-notes`: Find notes in your Bear library that have no tags assigned
- `bear-add-tag`: Add one or more tags to an existing Bear note. Requires the note's current revision token (the Revision: N line from…
- `bear-archive-note`: Archive a Bear note to remove it from active lists without deleting it
- `bear-rename-tag`: Rename a tag across all notes in your Bear library
- `bear-delete-tag`: Delete a tag from all notes in your Bear library without affecting the notes
- `bear-capabilities`: Report the current server mode (read-only or Edit Mode) and how to unlock additional capabilities

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