claude-desktop-extension-bear-notes

This MCP server bundle lets Claude interact with your Bear Notes locally without sending data to external services. It reads Bear’s SQLite database for fast search and uses Bear’s native API for writes, giving you capabilities to search, read, create, update, tag, and archive notes directly from Claude conversations. The bundle exposes a suite of MCP tools such as bear-search-notes for searching content and tags, bear-open-note to fetch full note content including OCR text, bear-create-note to make new notes, bear-add-text and bear-replace-text for text manipulation within notes, bear-add-file to attach assets, and bear-list-tags or bear-find-untagged-notes for tag management. You can enable optional features like OCR search, new-note convention placement of tags after the title, and content replacement, all while keeping data local to your Mac.

To use it with Claude Code or other AI assistants, install the standalone MCP server via npx bear-notes-mcp@latest and add a configuration block for the MCP server named bear-notes. For Claude Code, you can run a one-command setup that pipes the MCP command through Claude Code, or configure the MCP in your local mcp.json like:

{ "mcpServers": { "bear-notes": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "bear-notes-mcp@latest"] } } }

Then prompt Claude with queries like: "Search my Bear notes for 'meeting'" or "Create a new note with the meeting summary and tag it #work". The 10 MCP tools are available to perform nuanced search (including OCR across attachments), read full note contents, create notes with optional titles and tags, and perform precise edits such as inserting text or replacing sections. Ensure Bear is installed and configured on macOS, and run the MCP server locally to keep all data on-device.

Prerequisites:

• macOS with Bear app installed
• Node.js 24.13.0+ installed on your machine

Standalone MCP server installation (recommended):

1. Ensure Node.js is installed (v24.13.0+).
2. Install or run the MCP server via NPX: npx -y bear-notes-mcp@latest
3. Start the MCP server if needed by invoking the command above; it will expose endpoints for Claude integration.

Using with Claude Code or other assistants:

1. Add the MCP server to your configuration as shown: { "mcpServers": { "bear-notes": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "bear-notes-mcp@latest"] } } }
2. If you want opt-in features, you can pass environment variables via the mcp config, for example: { "mcpServers": { "bear-notes": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "bear-notes-mcp@latest"], "env": { "UI_ENABLE_NEW_NOTE_CONVENTION": "true" } } } }
3. Start Claude and reference the bear-notes MCP server in your prompts, e.g., "Search my Bear notes for 'meeting'" or "Create a new note with the summary".

Prerequisites recap:

• Bear app installed on macOS
• Claude Desktop installed if using the extension workflow
• Node.js available for running the MCP server

Tips and caveats:

• This server operates locally; there are no external network calls by design.
• For safety, the content replacement feature is opt-in and requires explicit enablement.
• Logs: MCP server logs can help troubleshoot. On macOS, locate logs under your user Library/Logs/Claude.
• If you plan to use OCR search, ensure Bear notes with attached images/PDFs are properly indexed.
• You can control where new notes place tags (after the title) via the New Note Convention option; enable it if you prefer this behavior.
• When configuring env vars, keep sensitive data out of the MCP config; prefer per-environment management.