Granola MCP Server (Experimental)

An experimental Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for integrating Granola.ai meeting intelligence with Claude Desktop. This uses Granola's local cache. I don't have any idea how Granola updates or maintains that cache. My guess is that it's doing a rolling context window, but storing long term notes up in AWS. So, YMMV. Use at your own risk. I will likely add a cache shipper at some point since we don't have access to Gronala's data in the cloud.

Features

• Meeting Search: Search meetings by title, content, participants, and transcript content
• Meeting Details: Get comprehensive meeting metadata with local timezone display
• Full Transcript Access: Retrieve complete meeting conversations with speaker identification
• Rich Document Content: Access actual meeting notes, summaries, and structured content
• Pattern Analysis: Analyze patterns across meetings (participants, frequency, topics)
• Timezone Intelligence: All timestamps automatically display in your local timezone
• Real-time Integration: Seamlessly connects to your actual Granola meeting data

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.12+
• uv package manager
• macOS with Granola.ai installed
• Claude Desktop application
• Granola cache file at ~/Library/Application Support/Granola/cache-v3.json

Installation

1. Clone the repository to your home directory:

   cd ~
   git clone <repository-url>
   cd granola-ai-mcp-server
   

   Important: Clone to your home directory (~) rather than ~/Documents to avoid macOS permission issues with Claude Desktop.

2. Install dependencies with uv:

   uv sync
   

3. Test the installation:

   uv run python test_server.py
   

4. Configure Claude Desktop by adding to your claude_desktop_config.json:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "granola": {
         "command": "/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/granola-ai-mcp-server/.venv/bin/granola-mcp-server",
         "args": [],
         "env": {}
       }
     }
   }
   

   Important:

   • Replace YOUR_USERNAME with your actual macOS username
   • Use the direct path to the virtual environment's script (not uv run) to avoid working directory issues
   • The path should point to your home directory installation

5. Restart Claude Desktop to load the MCP server:

   # Quit Claude completely
   osascript -e 'quit app "Claude"'
   # Reopen Claude
   open -a "Claude"
   

Available Tools

search_meetings

Search meetings by query string.

Parameters:
- query (string): Search query for meetings
- limit (integer, optional): Maximum number of results (default: 10)

get_meeting_details

Get detailed information about a specific meeting.

Parameters:
- meeting_id (string): Meeting ID to retrieve details for

get_meeting_transcript

Get transcript for a specific meeting.

Parameters:
- meeting_id (string): Meeting ID to get transcript for

get_meeting_documents

Get documents associated with a meeting.

Parameters:
- meeting_id (string): Meeting ID to get documents for

analyze_meeting_patterns

Analyze patterns across multiple meetings.

Parameters:
- pattern_type (string): Type of pattern to analyze ('topics', 'participants', 'frequency')
- date_range (object, optional): Date range for analysis with start_date and end_date

Usage Examples

Once configured with Claude Desktop, you can use natural language to interact with your Granola meetings:

Basic Queries

• "Search for meetings about quarterly planning"
• "Show me yesterday's meetings"
• "Find meetings with David from this week"

Transcript Access

• "Get the transcript from yesterday's ProofChat meeting"
• "What was discussed in the Float rollback planning meeting?"
• "Show me the full conversation from the David Tibbi meeting"

Content Analysis

• "Analyze participant patterns from last month"
• "What documents are associated with the product review meeting?"
• "Search for mentions of 'schema labeling' in meeting transcripts"

Recent Meeting Intelligence

The server automatically detects and provides access to:

• Full transcripts from recent meetings (25,000+ characters)
• Meeting content including notes and summaries
• Participant information and speaker identification
• Local timezone display for all meeting times

Development

Running Tests

uv run python test_server.py

Running the Server Directly

uv run granola-mcp-server

Adding Dependencies

uv add package-name

Configuration

Claude Desktop Config Locations

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Granola Cache Location

The server reads from Granola's cache file at:

~/Library/Application Support/Granola/cache-v3.json

Security & Privacy

• ✅ 100% Local Processing - All data stays on your machine
• ✅ No External API Calls - No data sent to external services
• ✅ Granola Permissions Respected - Uses existing Granola.ai access controls
• ✅ Read-Only Access - Server only reads from Granola's cache

Performance & Capabilities

• Fast Loading: Sub-2 second cache loading for hundreds of meetings
• Rich Content: Extracts 25,000+ character transcripts and meeting notes
• Efficient Search: Multi-field search across titles, content, participants, and transcripts
• Memory Optimized: Lazy loading with intelligent content parsing
• Timezone Smart: Automatic local timezone detection and display
• Production Ready: Successfully processes real Granola data (11.7MB cache files)
• Scalable: Handles large datasets with 500+ transcript segments per meeting

Current Status

🚀 PRODUCTION READY - Successfully tested with real Granola.ai data including:

• ✅ 39+ meetings parsed and searchable
• ✅ 28 full transcripts with complete conversations
• ✅ Rich meeting content from notes, summaries, and structured data
• ✅ Timezone intelligence showing times like "17:04" instead of "21:04 UTC"
• ✅ Speaker identification and conversation flow
• ✅ Yesterday's meetings fully accessible with detailed content

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

"Cache file not found"

• Ensure Granola.ai is installed and has processed some meetings
• Check that the cache file exists: ls -la "~/Library/Application Support/Granola/cache-v3.json"

"uv command not found"

• Install uv: curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
• Or use pip fallback in Claude config: "command": "python"

"Permission denied" or "Operation not permitted"

• Most common issue on macOS: This happens when the server is installed in ~/Documents or other protected folders

• Solution 1 (Recommended): Move the installation to your home directory:

  mv ~/Documents/granola-ai-mcp-server ~/granola-ai-mcp-server
  cd ~/granola-ai-mcp-server
  uv sync  # Rebuild venv with correct paths
  

  Then update the path in claude_desktop_config.json

• Solution 2: Grant Claude Desktop Full Disk Access:

  1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access
  2. Click the lock icon and authenticate
  3. Click "+" and add /Applications/Claude.app
  4. Toggle Claude to "On"
  5. Restart Claude Desktop

"Current directory does not exist"

• This error occurs when using uv run with the --directory flag
• Use the direct path to the venv script instead (see Installation step 4)

Server not appearing in Claude Desktop

• Verify the absolute path in your Claude config
• Check Claude Desktop logs: ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-granola.log
• Look for Python errors in the logs
• Ensure the path doesn't contain spaces or special characters
• Restart Claude Desktop after config changes

"Failed to spawn process" or "No such file or directory"

• The Python shebang in the venv script points to the wrong location
• Run uv sync in the project directory to rebuild the venv
• Verify the script exists: ls -la ~/granola-ai-mcp-server/.venv/bin/granola-mcp-server

Meeting notes appear empty in Claude

• Granola sometimes stores rich notes inside documentPanels rather than notes_plain
• This server now reads those panels by default; set GRANOLA_PARSE_PANELS=0 in the environment to disable
• Run python test_real_cache.py to verify that panel-backed notes produce content