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Frequently asked questions

What does the Notion MCP server do?

Notion MCP Server > [!NOTE] > > For the best experience, use Remote Notion MCP , > our official hosted MCP server. This repository is a separate, self-hosted MCP > server implementation that is no longer actively maintained or supported. Please > use Remote Notion MCP instead. It is purpose-built to give AI agents > faster results using far fewer tokens . > > Remote Notion MCP can search your workspace and connected apps semantically, read and > edit pages in Markdown, and return only the most relevant context. That means less > time waiting, less context-window usage, and lower token costs. It also uses OAuth > and automatically respects each user's existing Notion permissions—without API > tokens, JSON configuration, manual page sharing, or a local server to maintain. > > Feature Remote Notion MCP This project (local) > --- :---: :---: > Fast, hosted experience ✅ Runs and updates locally > Token-efficient responses ✅ Limited > Powerful tools tailored for AI agents ✅ Basic API-derived tools > Semantic search across your Notion workspace ✅ Keyword search only > AI Connector search across connected apps ✅ Not available > Markdown-native page reading and editing ✅ Limited to two page-content tools > Seamless OAuth setup ✅ Manual token and JSON configuration > Respects each user's existing Notion permissions ✅ Manual integration permissions and page sharing > Active support and ongoing improvements ✅ Not actively supported > > Learn more and get started in the Remote Notion MCP documentation. > > We are prioritizing, and only providing active support for, Remote Notion MCP . As a result: > > - We may sunset this local MCP server repository in the future. > - Issues and pull requests here are not actively monitored. > - Please do not file issues relating to the remote MCP here; instead, contact Notion support. This project implements an MCP server for the Notion API. --- ⚠️ Version 2.0.0 breaking changes Version 2.0.0 migrates to the Notion API 2025-09-03 which introduces data sources as the primary abstraction for databases. What changed Removed tools (3): post-database-query - replaced by query-data-source update-a-database - replaced by update-a-data-source create-a-database - replaced by create-a-data-source New tools (7): query-data-source - Query a data source (database) with filters and sorts retrieve-a-data-source - Get metadata and schema for a data source update-a-data-source - Update data source properties create-a-data-source - Create a new data source list-data-source-templates - List available templates in a data source move-page - Move a page to a different parent location retrieve-a-database - Get database metadata including its data source IDs Parameter changes: All database operations now use data source id instead of database id Search filter values changed from ["page", "database"] to ["page", "data source"] Page creation now supports both page id and database id parents (for data sources) Do I need to migrate? No code changes required. MCP tools are discovered automatically when the server starts. When you upgrade to v2.0.0, AI clients will automatically see the new tool names and parameters. The old database tools are no longer available. If you have hardcoded tool names or prompts that reference the old database tools, update them to use the new data source tools: Old Tool (v1.x) New Tool (v2.0) Parameter Change -------------- --------------- ---------------- post-database-query query-data-source database id → data source id update-a-database update-a-data-source database id → data source id create-a-database create-a-data-source No change (uses parent.page id ) > Note: retrieve-a-database is still available and returns database metadata including the list of data source IDs. Use retrieve-a-data-source to get the schema and properties of a specific data source. Total tools now: 22 (was 19 in v1.x) --- Page content as Markdown The server exposes two tools for working with page content as enhanced Markdown instead of block JSON, which is significantly more token-efficient for AI agents: retrieve-page-markdown — Read a page's full content as Markdown ( GET /v1/pages/{page id}/markdown ). Pass include transcript: true to inline meeting-note transcripts. update-page-markdown — Edit a page's content with Markdown ( PATCH /v1/pages/{page id}/markdown ). Prefer replace content to overwrite the whole page, or update content for targeted find-and-replace edits. These endpoints require Notion API version 2026-03-11 . The server now sources the Notion-Version header per operation from the OpenAPI spec, so these tools use 2026-03-11 while the rest of the API continues to use 2025-09-03 — no configuration needed. If you set Notion-Version yourself via OPENAPI MCP HEADERS , your value takes precedence for every tool. --- Installation Setting up integration in Notion Go to and create a new internal integration or select an existing one. While we limit the scope of Notion API's exposed (for example, you will not be able to delete databases via MCP), there is a non-zero risk to workspace data by exposing it to LLMs. Security-conscious users may want to further configure the Integration's Capabilities . For example, you can create a read-only integration token by giving only "Read content" access from the "Configuration" tab: Connecting content to integration Ensure relevant pages and databases are connected to your integration. To do this, visit the Access tab in your internal integration settings. Edit access and select the pages you'd like to use. Alternatively, you can grant page access individually. You'll need to visit the target page, and click on the 3 dots, and select "Connect to integration". Adding MCP config to your client Using npm Cursor & Claude Add the following to your .cursor/mcp.json or claude desktop config.json (MacOS: /Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude desktop config.json ) Option 1: Using NOTION TOKEN (recommended) Option 2: Using OPENAPI MCP HEADERS (for advanced use cases) Zed Add the following to your settings.json GitHub Copilot CLI Use the Copilot CLI to interactively add the MCP server: Alternatively, create or edit the configuration file /.copilot/mcp-config.json and add: For more information, see the Copilot CLI documentation. Using Docker There are two options for running the MCP server with Docker: Option 1: Using the official Docker Hub image Add the following to your .cursor/mcp.json or claude desktop config.json Using NOTION TOKEN (recommended): Using OPENAPI MCP HEADERS (for advanced use cases): This approach: Uses the official Docker Hub image Properly handles JSON escaping via environment variables Provides a more reliable configuration method Option 2: Building the Docker image locally You can also build and run the Docker image locally. First, build the Docker image: Then, add the following to your .cursor/mcp.json or claude desktop config.json Using NOTION TOKEN (recommended): Using OPENAPI MCP HEADERS (for advanced use cases): Don't forget to replace ntn with your integration secret. Find it from your integration configuration tab: Transport options The Notion MCP Server supports two transport modes: STDIO transport (default) The default transport mode uses standard input/output for communication. This is the standard MCP transport used by most clients like Claude Desktop. Streamable HTTP transport For web-based applications or clients that prefer HTTP communication, you can use the Streamable HTTP transport: When using Streamable HTTP transport, the server will be available at >/mcp by default. Authentication The Streamable HTTP transport requires bearer token authentication for security. You have three options: Option 1: Auto-generated token (only for development) The server will generate a secure random token and write it to a file with restricted permissions: Option 2: Custom token via command line (recommended for production) Option 3: Custom token via environment variable (recommended for production) The command line argument --auth-token takes precedence over the AUTH TOKEN environment variable if both are provided. Unsafe option: disable HTTP authentication You can disable bearer token authentication only with the explicit unsafe flag: WARNING: --unsafe-disable-auth is unsafe. The server may be reachable to pages you visit via DNS rebinding. Only use it on an isolated network. When authentication is disabled, the server enables DNS rebinding protection by checking the Host and Origin headers against the configured local host and loopback hosts. The previous --disable-auth flag is still accepted as a deprecated alias, but it will print a warning. Making HTTP requests All requests to the Streamable HTTP transport must include the bearer token in the Authorization header: Note: Make sure to set either the NOTION TOKEN environment variable (recommended) or the OPENAPI MCP HEADERS environment variable with your Notion integration token when using either transport mode. Serving multiple integrations (per-request token passthrough) By default the server authenticates to Notion with a single token baked in at startup, which locks one deployment to one Notion integration. To let a single deployment serve multiple integrations, enable token passthrough so each client supplies its own Notion integration token per connection: Clients then send their Notion token on the initialize request using the dedicated Notion-Token header: How the token is resolved for each connection, in order: The Notion-Token header (preferred — unambiguous, and works alongside the server's own Authorization gateway auth). If present it must be a valid Notion token, otherwise the request is rejected with 401 . Authorization: Bearer ntn — only when the server's own bearer auth is turned off ( --unsafe-disable-auth ), so the header is free to carry the Notion token directly. Otherwise the startup env token ( NOTION TOKEN / OPENAPI MCP HEADERS ), if set, so passthrough and a default integration can coexist on one deployment. Notes: Only values with a Notion token prefix ( ntn , legacy secret ) are treated as Notion tokens, so the server's gateway secret and a tenant's Notion token never collide. Each token is bound to its MCP session; tokens are never logged (only a redacted prefix is emitted). This is a deliberate token-passthrough setup. Always deploy it over TLS, and prefer keeping the server's own bearer auth ( --auth-token ) enabled as a gateway in front of multi-tenant traffic. Examples Using the following instruction AI will correctly plan two API calls, v1/search and v1/comments , to achieve the task Similarly, the following instruction will result in a new page named "Notion MCP" added to parent page "Development" You may also reference content ID directly Development Build & test Execute Testing changes locally in Cursor: Run npm link command from repository root to create a machine-global symlink to the notion-mcp-server package. Merge the configuration snippet below into Cursor's mcp.json (or other MCP client you want to test with). (Cleanup) run npm unlink from repository root. Publish

How do I install Notion?

Run the install command shown above, then paste the config for your client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code or Windsurf) into its MCP settings and restart the client.

Is Notion free to use?

The MCP server itself is free to install. The source is public on https://github.com/makenotion/notion-mcp-server. Any third-party service it calls may require its own API key and account.

Which clients support Notion?

Any MCP-compatible client can use it, including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf and custom agents.