bike

This MCP server enables programmatic interaction with the Bike outliner on macOS via AppleScript. It exposes reading and writing capabilities for Bike documents, including listing open documents, reading outlines, searching rows, and creating or updating documents and rows. To use it, configure Claude Desktop (or your MCP client) to point at the server entry point, typically by running the Node server and wiring the client to the provided endpoint. The server communicates with Bike using osascript (AppleScript) and requires Bike to be running with a document open. The results expose the document outline in a human-readable indented text format, along with structured IDs for rows to support targeted updates and reorganizations.

Prerequisites:

• macOS with Bike installed
• Node.js 18+ installed
• Claude Desktop (or MCP client) for integration

From source:

1. Clone the repository and navigate to the project directory
2. Install dependencies

   npm install
   

3. Build the project (produces dist/index.js)

   npm run build
   

4. Run the server locally for testing

   npm start
   

Installation via Desktop Extension (recommended):

1. Download bike-mcp-server.mcpb from releases
2. Double-click the file to open with Claude Desktop
3. Click Install and follow prompts

Configuration with Claude Desktop:

• In claude_desktop_config.json, add the bike server configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bike": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/bike-mcp-server/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

• Restart Claude Desktop to apply changes.

Tips and common considerations:

• Ensure Bike is running and a document is open, since many operations rely on AppleScript interactions with Bike.
• The server uses osascript to execute AppleScript; if macOS security prompts appear, grant necessary permissions for automation.
• The outline output is presented as indented text for readability, while row IDs are provided for precise updates.
• If you modify the server code, re-build (npm run build) and restart the server to apply changes.
• The npm package for this server is bike-mcp-server (if you’re publishing or installing from npm).