outline

outline-mcp is a production-focused MCP server that connects MCP clients to Outline workspaces, enabling agents to read, update, and manage Outline content through MCP verbs and tool mappings. It exposes a curated set of MCP tools that correspond to Outline operations, such as listing and managing collections, documents, templates, comments, and memberships, as well as AI-assisted search and document lifecycle actions. You can run this server using npx or install it globally via npm, and then point your MCP client at the server’s outline endpoint. The included environment variables let you control which Outline actions are allowed, the base URL of the Outline instance (cloud or self-hosted), and authentication through an API key. This setup is designed to work with popular MCP clients like Codex, Claude Desktop, and Cursor by presenting Outline capabilities as standard MCP tools.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js v20 or newer installed on your system
• Internet access to fetch packages from npm

Install (recommended):

1. Install the MCP server globally via npm and run it directly:

npm i -g @sigee-min/outline-mcp
outline-mcp

2. Or run without a global install using npx:

npx -y @sigee-min/outline-mcp

Configuration:

• Set up your Outline API credentials and endpoint as environment variables (see the mcp_config example below).
• Ensure your MCP client is configured to connect to the server as defined in the mcp_config (outline.server in this example).

Optional advanced setup:

• Use a process manager (e.g., pm2) for production deployments and to keep the MCP server running continuously.
• If you need to customize allowed actions or endpoints, adjust the OUTLINE_ALLOWED_ACTIONS and related env vars accordingly.

Tips and notes:

• The server relies on Outline API access; ensure your API key has appropriate permissions for the actions you intend to perform.
• OUTLINE_BASE_URL should point to your Outline instance (cloud or self-hosted); for self-hosted, provide the full base URL.
• OUTLINE_ALLOWED_ACTIONS controls what MCP clients can do via the server (e.g., read, write, delete). Use safe defaults for development (read, write, delete) and lock down in production.
• If you enable OUTLINE_LEASE_* settings (via other configurations not shown in the basic example), you can coordinate multi-agent access with leases. Adjust TTLs to suit your usage pattern.
• When integrating with MCP clients, you may need to map client capabilities to Outline operations (e.g., list_collections → Documents/Collections in Outline). The server exposes these mappings and tools to make this alignment straightforward.
• If you encounter connectivity issues, verify that OUTLINE_API_KEY and OUTLINE_BASE_URL are correct, that the Outline instance is reachable from the MCP server, and that firewall rules permit outbound API calls to Outline.