Getting Started

What is Outline?

Outline is a team knowledge base platform. It provides structured spaces for documents, collections, permissions, comments, memberships, and publishing workflows.

What outline-mcp is

outline-mcp is an MCP server that maps Outline API capabilities into structured MCP tools and resources.

In practice, this means your MCP client can call well-defined operations such as reading documents, updating content, managing memberships, exporting collections, or coordinating concurrent edits.

How a typical request flows

A normal request path is:

1. The MCP client calls a tool.
2. outline-mcp validates input and checks allowed actions.
3. The server calls the appropriate Outline endpoint.
4. The response is normalized and returned to the client.

Because permissions are enforced server-side, you can safely run different clients with different capabilities.

Core safety model

The default safety model combines three controls:

• Explicit action gating through OUTLINE_ALLOWED_ACTIONS.
• Conflict-aware document updates through safe_update_document.
• Lease-based ownership for concurrent workers on hot documents.

If you apply these three controls from day one, most accidental mutation issues are prevented before they become incidents.

Recommended first rollout

Use this rollout order:

1. Start with read only.
2. Validate list_collections, search_documents, and read_document.
3. Move to read,write for controlled creation/update paths.
4. Add delete only when document lifecycle ownership is clear.

Minimum requirements

You need:

• Node.js 20 or newer.
• An Outline API key.
• An MCP client (Codex, Claude Desktop, Cursor, or equivalent).

Next step

Continue to Installation.