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

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.
Install dependencies with uv:
```
uv sync
```
Test the installation:
```
uv run python test_server.py
```
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

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

granola-ai-mcp-server