trilium-bolt

trilium-bolt

Lightning-fast MCP server for Trilium Notes — returns LLM-friendly markdown instead of raw HTML, so AI can read and write your notes naturally. Search, create, update, and organize your notes with AI. Connect Claude to your personal knowledge base with minimal setup.

Quick Start

1. Get your Trilium token

In Trilium: Options → ETAPI → Create new ETAPI token

2. Configure Claude Code to use the MCP server

Add to your ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trilium": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "trilium-bolt"],
      "env": {
        "TRILIUM_TOKEN": "your-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Not using Claude Code? See setup instructions for Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Cline, and other MCP clients Running Trilium in Docker? See the Docker Setup Guide

3. Use it

You: Search my notes for "project ideas"
You: Create a new note called "Meeting Notes" under my Work folder
You: What's in my daily journal from last week?

That's it!

Why Lightweight?

Unlike traditional servers, trilium-bolt uses stdio transport - meaning:

• On-demand execution - Only runs when Claude needs it, not a 24/7 daemon
• Zero network ports - No HTTP server, no port conflicts, no firewall rules
• Minimal memory - ~20-30MB when active, 0MB when idle
• No background processes - Spawned by Claude, terminates when done
• Instant startup - No container spin-up, just a Node.js process

How it works

┌──────────────┐     stdin/stdout      ┌─────────────┐     ETAPI      ┌─────────────┐
│  MCP Client  │ ◄──────────────────► │ trilium-bolt │ ◄────────────► │  Trilium    │
│ (Claude Code,│                       └─────────────┘                └─────────────┘
│  Cursor, etc)│                        Runs on-demand                 Your notes
└──────────────┘                        No daemon                      Local app

This is the simplest possible architecture - just a CLI that your MCP client invokes when you ask about your notes.

Markdown support

Trilium stores notes as HTML internally, but LLMs work much better with markdown. trilium-bolt handles the conversion transparently:

• Reading notes — HTML content is automatically converted to markdown before returning to the AI
• Creating/updating notes — Content is accepted as markdown by default and converted to HTML before saving to Trilium
• HTML pass-through — Set contentFormat: "html" on create/update calls if you need to send raw HTML

No configuration needed — markdown is the default for both input and output.

Tools

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | search_notes | Full-text and attribute search | | get_note | Retrieve note content (as markdown) and metadata | | get_note_tree | Get children/hierarchy of a note | | create_note | Create a new note — accepts markdown (default) or HTML | | update_note | Update note title, content (markdown or HTML), or attributes | | delete_note | Delete a note | | delete_attribute | Delete an attribute (label or relation) from a note by name | | create_backup | Create a backup of the Trilium database | | create_revision | Create a revision snapshot of a note's current content |

Configuration

| Variable | Required | Default | Description | |----------|----------|---------|-------------| | TRILIUM_TOKEN | Yes | - | Your ETAPI token | | TRILIUM_URL | No | http://localhost:37840 | Trilium server URL |

Examples

Search notes: `` Search my Trilium notes for anything about "machine learning" Find all my notes tagged with "recipe" Show me notes that are tagged both "recipe" and "vegetarian" Find all notes where the priority label is set to "high" and status is "active" Find all notes whose titles start with "Meeting" ``

Create a note: `` Create a note titled "Book Notes: Atomic Habits" with a summary of the key points Create a note called "Pasta Carbonara" tagged with "recipe" and "italian" ``

Create/update notes with attributes: `` Create a note "Sprint Planning" with labels priority=high and status=active Add a "completed" tag to my "Q4 Report" note Update the priority label on my "Bug Fix" note to "low" ``

Delete attributes: `` Remove the "deprecated" tag from my "Old API" note Delete the priority label from my "Task List" note ``

Backups and revisions: `` Create a backup of my Trilium database called "before-cleanup" Save a revision of my "Project Plan" note before I make changes ``

Explore hierarchy: `` Show me the structure of my "Projects" folder ``

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/mursilsayed/trilium-bolt.git
cd trilium-bolt
npm install
npm run build

To use your local build instead of the published package, point your MCP client to the built output:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trilium": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/trilium-bolt/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "TRILIUM_TOKEN": "your-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

For development, use npm run dev to rebuild on file changes.

Publishing to npm

npm run build
npm publish

To publish a pre-release or dry-run first:

npm publish --dry-run

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• Trilium Notes running with ETAPI enabled

License

MIT