mcp-outline

MCP Outline is a server that integrates Outline document management into your Model Context Protocol (MCP) ecosystem. It exposes tools to search, read, create, edit, archive documents, manage collections and hierarchies, handle comments, and discover backlinks. The server also provides direct content access through outline:// URIs and includes automatic rate limiting with retry logic to gracefully handle Outline API limits. To use it, configure an MCP client to point at the mcp-outline server and supply your Outline API credentials so the server can perform operations on your Outline workspace.

Prerequisites:

• Python 3.10+ (for non-Docker installations)
• Access to a Python environment with pip or uv (uvx)
• An Outline account with an API key (OUTLINE_API_KEY)

Installation options:

1. Install with uvx (recommended): uvx mcp-outline

2. Install with pip (Python package): pip install mcp-outline

3. Docker (run the server as a container): docker run -e OUTLINE_API_KEY=<your-key> ghcr.io/vortiago/mcp-outline:latest

After installation, configure the MCP client to use the server (examples shown in the Quick Start section of the README):

{
  "inputs": [
    { "id": "outline_api_key", "type": "promptString", "description": "Enter OUTLINE_API_KEY", "password": true },
    { "id": "outline_api_url", "type": "promptString", "description": "Outline API URL (optional, for self-hosted)", "password": false }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "mcp-outline": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-outline"],
      "env": {
        "OUTLINE_API_KEY": "${input:outline_api_key}",
        "OUTLINE_API_URL": "${input:outline_api_url}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Optional: If you prefer Docker, you can run the container and set the OUTLINE_API_KEY environment variable as shown in the Docker example above.

Configuration notes:

• Required environment variable: OUTLINE_API_KEY (necessary for tool calls to Outline)
• Optional: OUTLINE_API_URL (useful for self-hosted Outline instances)
• Other configurable options exist in the server's configuration (see the README's Configuration table) such as SSL verification, read-only mode, and connection parameters.
• You can place this MCP server behind your standard MCP client setup (VS Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.) using the provided config payloads.
• When using Docker, ensure the container has network access to Outline endpoints and that the API key is kept secure.
• For multi-user setups, consider per-user API keys or per-request headers as described in the configuration guide.