recall-mcp

TL;DR: Local semantic search MCP server for markdown docs and Granola meeting transcripts. Ask Claude "what did we decide about X?" and it finds relevant content by meaning. Runs entirely on your machine - no API keys, no cloud, no cost.

Give Claude Code long-term memory over your notes and meetings. It searches by meaning, runs locally, and costs nothing.

What this is

A Model Context Protocol server that indexes your markdown files and Granola meeting transcripts into a local vector database. Claude Code can then search across everything by meaning, not just keywords.

You ask something like "what did we decide about the onboarding flow?" and it surfaces relevant chunks from your docs and meeting recordings, even if those exact words never appeared.

How it works:

Your markdown files + Granola meetings
           |
           v
  Ollama (nomic-embed-text)    <- local embedding model, no API key
           |
           v
       ChromaDB                <- local vector database on localhost:8000
           |
           v
    5 MCP tools                <- Claude Code calls these during conversations

Auto-indexing runs every 15 minutes in the background via a macOS LaunchAgent.

Example

You ask Claude Code: "what did we decide about the onboarding flow?"

recall-mcp searches your docs and meeting transcripts by meaning and returns the relevant chunks:

Source: meetings/product-sync-2026-03-14.md (similarity: 0.82)
"We agreed to cut the walkthrough video and ship a checklist instead.
Jamie owns the copy, targeting next sprint."

Source: docs/onboarding/decisions.md (similarity: 0.79)
"Checklist approach approved — three steps max, no modal,
inline in the dashboard."

Claude uses these results to answer your question with the actual context from your notes and meetings.

Works with

recall-mcp uses the standard MCP stdio transport, so it works with any MCP-compatible client:

The MCP config block is the same across all of them. This README uses Claude Code as the example, but the server doesn't care which client connects to it.

Note: Setup requires comfort with the terminal, or the ability to point your AI tool at this repo and ask it to set things up for you. For example, you can paste this README into Claude Code or Claude Desktop and ask it to clone the repo and run the setup script on your behalf.

Prerequisites

• macOS (LaunchAgent setup is macOS-specific; the core server works anywhere)
• Node.js 18+ - brew install node
• Ollama - ollama.com or brew install ollama
• uv (for running ChromaDB) - brew install uv
• Granola desktop app - granola.ai - only needed if you want meeting transcript search

Setup

1. Clone and build

git clone https://github.com/thetenzinwoser/recall-mcp.git
cd recall-mcp
npm install
npm run build

2. Install the embedding model

brew services start ollama
ollama pull nomic-embed-text

First pull is ~274MB. After that it's cached.

3. Run setup

./scripts/setup.sh

This will:

• Ask where your markdown docs live (DOCS_PATH)
• Write a .env file
• Generate LaunchAgent plists from templates and load them
• Start ChromaDB and schedule auto-indexing
• Run an initial index of your docs and Granola transcripts
• Print the MCP config block to paste into Claude Code

4. Add to your MCP client

Add this to your client's MCP config (see the "Works with" table above for file locations):

"recall": {
  "type": "stdio",
  "command": "node",
  "args": ["/absolute/path/to/recall-mcp/dist/server.js"]
}

Use the exact path printed at the end of setup.sh. Then restart your client. In Claude Code, run /mcp to confirm it connected.

Tools

get_transcript details

• Title search with date: { searchTitle: "team sync March 14" } - extracts the date and fuzzy-matches the title
• Explicit date: { searchTitle: "team sync", date: "2026-03-14" } - when multiple meetings share a title
• Partial ID: First 8 characters of a meeting UUID is enough
• List recent: { listRecent: 20 } to browse recent meetings with IDs

Configuration

All settings have sensible defaults. The only one most people need is DOCS_PATH.

Copy .env.example to .env and edit:

cp .env.example .env

ChromaDB runs on localhost:8000 by default. This is not configurable without editing the LaunchAgent plist directly.

Granola integration

recall-mcp reads your Granola auth token from the Granola desktop app's local data. No separate API key or login needed - just have Granola installed and signed in.

Auth token location: ~/Library/Application Support/Granola/supabase.json

If you don't use Granola, the doc indexing still works fine. Transcript-related tools will return errors, which Claude handles gracefully.

Manual commands

Reindex now (instead of waiting for the 15-min interval):

cd /path/to/recall-mcp && npx tsx src/scripts/auto-index.ts

Check ChromaDB is running:

curl -s http://localhost:8000/api/v2/heartbeat

Check what's indexed:

# Use the index_status MCP tool, or check logs:
tail -f /path/to/recall-mcp/logs/auto-index.log

Rebuild after pulling updates:

npm run build

Restart ChromaDB:

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.recall.chromadb.plist
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.recall.chromadb.plist

Troubleshooting

semantic_search returns nothing / MCP not connecting

• Run /mcp in Claude Code to check server status
• Make sure dist/server.js exists (npm run build)
• Verify the path in ~/.claude.json is absolute and correct

ChromaDB not running

curl -s http://localhost:8000/api/v2/heartbeat
# Should return: {"nanosecond heartbeat": ...}

If it fails, check logs/chromadb-stderr.log or reload the LaunchAgent.

Ollama errors

ollama list
# nomic-embed-text should appear

If not: ollama pull nomic-embed-text

Granola auth fails Make sure the Granola desktop app is installed and you're logged in. The token file should exist at ~/Library/Application Support/Granola/supabase.json.

Results feel stale Force a reindex: npx tsx src/scripts/auto-index.ts. The auto-indexer only picks up file changes and new meetings - if you renamed files or restructured folders, a manual run helps.

Stack

License

MIT