What Is MCP?

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI coding tools connect to external data sources. Instead of copy-pasting context into your AI assistant, MCP lets the tool pull what it needs directly.

localWiki ships a separate localwiki-mcp binary that acts as an MCP server over stdio. It reads your localWiki database (read-only) and exposes workspace data to any MCP-compatible client.

Why It Matters

When you use an AI coding tool (Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Claude Code), it works best when it has context about your project. With localWiki’s MCP server, your AI assistant can:

• Search your wiki pages — full-text search with relevance ranking
• Read page content — fetch the plaintext of any wiki page
• List workspaces and projects — understand your project structure
• List secret metadata — see which environment variables your app expects (names, environments, and timestamps only)
• Check vault status — determine if the vault is locked or unlocked

AI Assistant: "What env vars does the payments service need?"
    |
    v
localwiki-mcp (stdio)
    |
    v
Returns: STRIPE_KEY, WEBHOOK_SECRET, DB_URL (names + timestamps, never values)

Supported Clients

The localwiki-mcp binary works with any tool that supports MCP over stdio:

• Cursor — built-in MCP support
• VS Code — via MCP configuration
• Claude Code — native MCP support
• Continue.dev — MCP plugin available

See Setup for configuration instructions for each client.