@shck-dev/notion-mcp
Notion MCP Server — search, export, and import pages as markdown
No workspace admin. No OAuth. No page sharing.
Just paste 3 values from your browser and go.
Blog Post | GitHub | npm
Features
- Search — full-text search across your entire workspace
- Export — download any page as clean markdown (headings, lists, to-do, code blocks, tables, links, images with viewable URLs)
- Import — write markdown back to Notion pages (replaces content), from a string or local file
- Append — add markdown to the end of a page without touching existing content
- Create — spin up new child pages, optionally prefilled from a markdown string or file
- Images — upload a local image to a page, or reference an external URL
- Comments — list open discussions, add new comments, reply to threads
- One-command setup —
npx @shck-dev/notion-mcp init: paste a browser "Copy as cURL" and it extracts + saves your credentials
- Prompts & resources — a
notion_setup prompt and a notion://guide resource for in-client onboarding
- Zero setup friction — uses the same internal API as the Notion web app; if you can see it in your browser, this server can access it
| Tool | Description |
|---|
notion_search | Full-text search across all pages in your workspace |
notion_export_page | Export any Notion page as markdown; image links resolve to viewable CDN URLs (pass image_dir to download images locally instead) |
notion_import_page | Write markdown to a Notion page — replaces all existing content |
notion_import_page_from_file | Write a local .md file to a page — replaces all content |
notion_append_to_page | Append markdown to the end of a page (non-destructive) |
notion_append_to_page_from_file | Append a local .md file to the end of a page (non-destructive) |
notion_create_page | Create a new sub-page, optionally prefilled with markdown |
notion_create_page_from_file | Create a new sub-page from a local .md file |
notion_add_image | Append an image to the end of a page — local file is uploaded to Notion, http(s) URL is referenced as-is |
notion_list_comments | List open discussion threads on a page |
notion_add_comment | Start a new discussion — inline (anchored to text) or block-level |
notion_reply_comment | Reply to an existing discussion thread |
notion_init | Paste a browser "Copy as cURL" to extract & save credentials |
Why not the official Notion API?
| This MCP server | Official Notion API |
|---|
| Setup | Paste 3 values from DevTools | Create integration, get admin approval, share pages |
| Page access | Everything you can see | Only explicitly shared pages |
| Markdown | Bidirectional (export + import) | Read-only blocks API |
| Auth | Cookie (token_v2) | OAuth / integration token |
Trade-off: The internal API is undocumented and may change. Token expires periodically (re-grab from browser).
Quick start
Easiest: interactive setup
npx @shck-dev/notion-mcp init
Open Notion in Chrome → DevTools (F12) → Network → click any request to notion.so/api/v3/… → right-click → Copy as cURL, then paste it and press Ctrl-D. Your token, user id, and workspace id are extracted and saved to ~/.notion-mcp/config.json. Then register the server — no env block needed:
claude mcp add notion -- npx @shck-dev/notion-mcp
Prefer to set the three values by hand? Steps below.
1. Get credentials from your browser
- Open notion.so in Chrome
- Press F12 → Application → Cookies →
www.notion.so
- Copy the
token_v2 cookie value → NOTION_TOKEN
- Press F12 → Network tab, do any action in Notion
- Find a POST request to
api/v3/*, click it
- From Request Headers: copy
x-notion-active-user-header → NOTION_USER_ID
- From Request Body (Payload): find
spaceId → NOTION_SPACE_ID
Claude Code
claude mcp add notion -- env NOTION_TOKEN=your_token NOTION_USER_ID=your_user_id NOTION_SPACE_ID=your_space_id npx @shck-dev/notion-mcp
Claude Desktop / Cursor / any MCP client
Add to your MCP config (claude_desktop_config.json, .cursor/mcp.json, etc.):
{
"mcpServers": {
"notion": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["@shck-dev/notion-mcp"],
"env": {
"NOTION_TOKEN": "your_token_v2_value",
"NOTION_USER_ID": "your_user_id",
"NOTION_SPACE_ID": "your_space_id"
}
}
}
}
Requirements
- Node.js ≥ 18 (for
npx) — or Bun. The published server is compiled to node-compatible JS, so Bun is no longer required to run it.
Limitations
- Internal API — undocumented, may break with Notion updates
- Token expiry —
token_v2 expires periodically; re-grab from browser when auth fails
- Databases — database/collection pages don't export rows yet; sub-pages render as links and such pages return an explanatory note instead of empty output
- Block granularity — import replaces all content, append adds to the end (no in-place editing of individual blocks)
- Lossy markdown — some complex formatting may simplify during conversion (e.g. nested lists flatten on import)
- External images — http(s) image URLs added via
notion_add_image (or embedded in markdown) are referenced as-is and not re-uploaded to Notion
License
MIT