BookStack MCP Server

1

Add it to Claude Code

Run this in a terminal.

Run in terminal
claude mcp add -e "BOOKSTACK_API_TOKEN=${BOOKSTACK_API_TOKEN}" -e "BOOKSTACK_API_URL=${BOOKSTACK_API_URL}" -e "BOOKSTACK_API_KEY=${BOOKSTACK_API_KEY}" mcp-bookstack -- npx -y @smithery/cli install @yellowgg2/mcp-bookstack --client claude
Required:BOOKSTACK_API_TOKENBOOKSTACK_API_URLBOOKSTACK_API_KEY
README.md

Search and retrieve content from BookStack knowledge bases via API

BookStack MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides tools for searching pages from BookStack. This server interacts with the BookStack API and provides structured data for pages with clean HTML-to-text conversion.

Features

  • Search pages from BookStack with customizable queries
  • Get structured data including titles, URLs, and content
  • Configurable pagination (page number and count)
  • HTML-to-text conversion for clean content reading
  • Clean error handling and validation

Installation

Installing via Smithery

To install mcp-bookstack for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @yellowgg2/mcp-bookstack --client claude

Installing Manually

  1. Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/yellowgg2/mcp-bookstack.git
cd mcp-bookstack
  1. Install dependencies:
npm install
  1. Configure your environment:

Create a .env file with your BookStack API credentials or provide them in the MCP settings configuration file:

BOOKSTACK_API_TOKEN=your_token
BOOKSTACK_API_URL=your_bookstack_url
BOOKSTACK_API_KEY=your_api_key
  1. Build the server:
npm run build
  1. Add to your MCP settings configuration file (location depends on your system):

For VSCode Claude extension:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bookstack": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/mcp-bookstack/build/app.js"],
      "env": {
        "BOOKSTACK_API_URL": "your_bookstack_url",
        "BOOKSTACK_API_TOKEN": "your_token",
        "BOOKSTACK_API_KEY": "your_api_key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Usage

The server provides a tool called search_pages that can be used to search pages from BookStack.

Tool: search_pages

Parameters:

  • query (string): Query to search for pages
    • Default: "" (empty string)
  • page (number): Page number to return
    • Range: 1-10
    • Default: 1
  • count (number): Number of pages to return
    • Range: 1-30
    • Default: 10

Example usage:

use_mcp_tool with:
server_name: "bookstack"
tool_name: "search_pages"
arguments: {
  "query": "knowledge base",
  "page": 1,
  "count": 5
}

Sample output:

# Page Title

Page content in plain text format...

Source: https://your-bookstack-url/page-url

Integrating with Claude

To use this MCP server with Claude, you'll need to:

  1. Have the Claude desktop app or VSCode Claude extension installed
  2. Configure the MCP server in your settings
  3. Use Claude's natural language interface to interact with BookStack

Configuration

For the Claude desktop app, VSCode Claude extension, and Cursor, add the server configuration to:

// ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS)
// %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows)
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bookstack": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/mcp-bookstack/build/app.js"],
      "env": {
        "BOOKSTACK_API_URL": "your_bookstack_url",
        "BOOKSTACK_API_TOKEN": "your_token",
        "BOOKSTACK_API_KEY": "your_api_key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Example Interactions

Once configured, you can interact with Claude using natural language to search BookStack pages. Examples:

  • "Search for documentation about API usage in our BookStack knowledge base"
  • "Find information about deployment in our internal docs"
  • "Look up security guidelines in BookStack"

Claude will automatically use the appropriate parameters to search for the pages you want.

Page Response Structure

Each page response includes:

  • Title of the page
  • Full content of the page (converted from HTML to plain text)
  • Source URL to the original page

The HTML-to-text conversion handles:

  • HTML entity decoding
  • Line breaks and paragraph formatting
  • List items with bullet points
  • Removal of HTML tags
  • Whitespace normalization

Development

The server is built using:

  • TypeScript
  • Model Context Protocol SDK
  • Axios for API requests
  • Zod for data validation
  • dotenv for environment configuration

To modify the server:

  1. Make changes to src/app.ts
  2. Rebuild:
npm run build

Error Handling

The server includes robust error handling for:

  • API connection failures
  • Authentication issues
  • Invalid parameter values
  • Data parsing errors

Errors are returned with appropriate error codes and descriptive messages.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

MIT License - feel free to use this in your own projects.

Tools (1)

search_pagesSearch for pages within a BookStack knowledge base.

Environment Variables

BOOKSTACK_API_TOKENrequiredAPI token for BookStack authentication
BOOKSTACK_API_URLrequiredThe base URL of your BookStack instance
BOOKSTACK_API_KEYrequiredAPI key for BookStack authentication

Configuration

claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bookstack": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/mcp-bookstack/build/app.js"],
      "env": {
        "BOOKSTACK_API_URL": "your_bookstack_url",
        "BOOKSTACK_API_TOKEN": "your_token",
        "BOOKSTACK_API_KEY": "your_api_key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Try it

Search for documentation about API usage in our BookStack knowledge base
Find information about deployment in our internal docs
Look up security guidelines in BookStack

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the key features of BookStack MCP Server?

Search pages from BookStack with customizable queries. Retrieve structured data including titles, URLs, and content. Configurable pagination for search results. Automatic HTML-to-text conversion for clean content reading.

What can I use BookStack MCP Server for?

Quickly querying internal company documentation stored in BookStack. Summarizing technical guides or onboarding docs directly within Claude. Retrieving specific policy or security information from a knowledge base.

How do I install BookStack MCP Server?

Install BookStack MCP Server by running: npx -y @smithery/cli install @yellowgg2/mcp-bookstack --client claude

What MCP clients work with BookStack MCP Server?

BookStack MCP Server works with any MCP-compatible client including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and other editors with MCP support.

Turn this server into reusable context

Keep BookStack MCP Server docs, env vars, and workflow notes in Conare so your agent carries them across sessions.

Need the old visual installer? Open Conare IDE.
Open Conare