mindkeeper-mcp — Track your thoughts. Build your mindmap.

Why mindkeeper

Everything you need for persistent AI memory

Ideas captured during a conversation shouldn't vanish when the session ends. mindkeeper-mcp makes them permanent.

💾

Persistent across sessions

Every idea is stored in ~/.mindkeeper/mindmap.json. Restart your AI, reopen the terminal — your mindmap is still there.

🌳

Hierarchical structure

Nest ideas under parents to build a tree. Explore any subtree, reorganize by re-parenting, and get the full map in one call.

🔒

Local & private

All data lives on your machine in a plain JSON file you control. No telemetry. Optional cloud backup via private GitHub Gist.

🔍

Full-text search

Weighted scoring across text and tags. Exact matches, substring matches, and per-token hits — ranked by relevance.

🏷️

Tagging system

Attach tags to any node for cross-cutting categorization. Use #tag or plain names — the hash is stripped automatically. Search by tag or export with tag metadata intact.

📤

Export to Markdown

Export your entire mindmap as a nested Markdown list — paste into docs, notes, or any text tool instantly.

⚡

Concurrency-safe writes

Serialized write queue and atomic temp→backup→rename strategy ensure the file is never corrupted under parallel tool calls.

🔌

Works with any MCP client

Use with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or any client implementing the Model Context Protocol.

🌐

Browser visualizer

Drop your mindmap.json on the Visualize page for an interactive, zoomable mindmap — no install required, fully client-side.

🚫

Deduplication

The same idea under the same parent is never added twice — no matter how many times the AI tries to capture it.

☁️

Cloud sync

Push and pull your mindmap to a private GitHub Gist. Auto-creates the Gist on first push and saves the ID back to config.

📊

Multiple export formats

Export as Markdown, Mermaid flowchart, OPML (for MindNode / OmniOutliner), or raw JSON for the browser visualizer.

Quick start

Up and running in 60 seconds

Install globally from npm, then register it as an MCP server in your client.

Install from npm

npm install -g mindkeeper-mcp

claude mcp add mindkeeper -- mindkeeper-mcp

Or register with Claude Desktop

// claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mindkeeper": {
      "command": "mindkeeper-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Open the config via Settings → Developer → Edit Config, or find it at %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows) / ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS).

⚠️ Restart Claude Desktop after saving the config — it only reads MCP servers on launch.

Start capturing ideas

# Ask your AI assistant:
"Add 'Ship v2 by Q3' to my mindmap
 under the strategy node,
 tagged #roadmap #q3"

Prefer local install? npm install mindkeeper-mcp then use claude mcp add mindkeeper -- node ./node_modules/.bin/mindkeeper-mcp

MCP Tools

Thirteen tools, zero friction

Every tool is callable by your AI assistant. No configuration required beyond installation.

Tool	Key parameters	What it does
`add_idea`	`text`, `parentId?`, `tags?`	Capture a new idea, optionally nested under a parent node
`update_node`	`nodeId`, `newText?`, `tags?`	Edit the text or tags of an existing node
`delete_node`	`nodeId`	Remove a node; children are orphaned but preserved
`search_ideas`	`query`	Full-text scored search across all node text and tags
`get_mindmap`	`nodeId?`	Retrieve the full tree, or a subtree from a given node
`export_markdown`	—	Export the entire mindmap as a nested Markdown list
`export_mermaid`	—	Export as a Mermaid flowchart — paste into GitHub, Notion, or Obsidian
`export_opml`	—	Export as OPML — import into MindNode, OmniOutliner, or XMind
`export_json`	—	Export raw JSON — use with the online visualizer
`export_html`	—	Generate a self-contained interactive HTML mindmap (zoom + pan, PNG/SVG export) saved to `~/.mindkeeper/mindmap-export.html`
`import_claude_export`	`filePath`	Parse a `conversations.json` from Claude.ai's data export and build a mindmap from your conversation history
`sync_cloud`	`direction`	Push or pull the mindmap to/from a private GitHub Gist
`cloud_status`	—	Show current cloud sync configuration

Track your thoughts.Build your mindmap.