kb-mcp

MCP server + CLI for markdown knowledge bases.

Read the Book | GitHub

Indexes markdown collections into a searchable BM25 index and exposes them as MCP tools. Configured entirely via RON files — no hardcoded paths or project-specific values.

Quick Start

# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/ttdonovan/kb-mcp.git
cd kb-mcp
just install  # installs both `kb` (CLI) and `kb-mcp` (MCP server)

# Try it — the example config indexes this project's own vault and docs
cp collections.example.ron collections.ron

# Search the included AI agent memory vault
kb list-sections
kb search --query "cognitive memory"
kb context --path "concepts/cognitive-memory-model.md"
kb get-document --path "concepts/retrieval-strategies.md"

To use with your own markdown collections, edit collections.ron to point at your directories. See Configuration below.

Install

# Install both binaries (CLI `kb` + MCP server `kb-mcp`)
just install

# Or install individually
cargo install --path crates/kb-cli          # installs `kb`
cargo install --path crates/kb-mcp-server   # installs `kb-mcp`

# With hybrid search (BM25 + vector, requires ONNX model — see below)
cargo install --path crates/kb-cli --features hybrid
cargo install --path crates/kb-mcp-server --features hybrid

Hybrid Search (optional)

Enable the hybrid feature for semantic vector search alongside BM25. Conceptual queries like "how do agents share state?" will match documents titled "shared memory" that keyword search alone would miss.

Requires the BGE-small-en-v1.5 ONNX model (~133MB):

# macOS: ~/Library/Caches/memvid/text-models/
# Linux: ~/.cache/memvid/text-models/
CACHE_DIR="${HOME}/Library/Caches/memvid/text-models"  # adjust for Linux
mkdir -p "$CACHE_DIR"
curl -L -o "$CACHE_DIR/bge-small-en-v1.5.onnx" \
  https://huggingface.co/BAAI/bge-small-en-v1.5/resolve/main/onnx/model.onnx
curl -L -o "$CACHE_DIR/bge-small-en-v1.5_tokenizer.json" \
  https://huggingface.co/BAAI/bge-small-en-v1.5/resolve/main/tokenizer.json

When hybrid is enabled, search automatically uses RRF fusion of BM25 + vector results. No query changes needed — agents get better results transparently.

Configuration

Create a collections.ron in your project root (or ~/.config/kb-mcp/collections.ron):

(
    collections: [
        (
            name: "docs",
            path: "docs",
            description: "Project documentation",
            writable: false,
            sections: [
                (prefix: "guides", description: "How-to guides"),
                (prefix: "reference", description: "API reference"),
            ],
        ),
        (
            name: "notes",
            path: "notes",
            description: "Working notes",
            writable: true,
            sections: [],
        ),
    ],
)

Collection paths resolve relative to the config file's location.

Config resolution order

1. --config <path> CLI flag
2. KB_MCP_CONFIG environment variable
3. ./collections.ron (current directory)
4. ~/.config/kb-mcp/collections.ron

MCP Server

Register in your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kb": {
      "command": "kb-mcp",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

For cross-project use, set KB_MCP_CONFIG to point to the config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kb": {
      "command": "kb-mcp",
      "env": {
        "KB_MCP_CONFIG": "/path/to/collections.ron"
      },
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

Tools

CLI

The kb binary provides CLI access to all tools:

kb list-sections
kb search --query "rate limits"
kb search --query "bevy" --collection skills
kb get-document --path "concepts/mcp-server-pattern.md"
kb context --path "concepts/mcp-server-pattern.md"
kb write --collection notes --title "My Note" --body "Content here"
kb reindex

Documentation

Project documentation is built with mdBook and uses Mermaid for architecture diagrams.

Prerequisites

cargo install mdbook
cargo install mdbook-mermaid

Build and serve

just book-build   # Build to book/book/
just book-serve   # Serve with live reload at http://localhost:3000

The book includes usage guides, tool reference, RON schema docs, and architecture diagrams. Source pages live in book/src/ — some are {{#include}} wrappers that pull content from docs/ so that documentation has a single source of truth.

Researcher Agent

A containerized agent that uses kb-mcp to research AI agent memory topics and curate findings into the vault. Runs in a ZeroClaw container with web search via Earl.

# Setup (web search uses DuckDuckGo — no API key needed)
cp agents/researcher/config/config.toml.ollama.example agents/researcher/config/config.toml

# Build and run
just agent-build
just agent-research-topic "HNSW vector search"

See agents/researcher/README.md for full setup and usage.

Development

just              # List available commands
just build        # Build all crates (debug)
just release      # Build all crates (release)
just check        # cargo check --workspace
just clippy       # Lint all crates
just test         # Run all tests
just run <args>   # Run CLI (e.g., just run list-sections)
just run-server   # Run MCP server
just book-build   # Build documentation
just book-serve   # Serve docs with live reload

License

MIT