Overleaf MCP Bridge

MCP bridge for Overleaf that uses its web API directly. Targets self-hosted Overleaf Community Edition and CEP-only features. Not guaranteed to work with the official Overleaf SaaS or Server Pro, as the author has no paid account to verify against.

Install

From Source Code

This project is a Python package, requiring Python 3.12 or newer. Install it with uv:

git clone https://github.com/Firefox2100/overleaf-mcp.git
cd overleaf-mcp
uv sync

From a Container Image

A prebuilt image is published to GitHub Container Registry on every push to main:

docker pull ghcr.io/firefox2100/overleaf-mcp:latest

Or with Compose, using the provided compose.yaml (defaults to streamable HTTP on port 8000):

cp example.env .env
docker compose up -d

Set the environment variables in the .env file before starting. See Configuration below.

Related MCP server: openevidence-mcp

Configuration

Settings are read from the enviornment, in this order of precedence:

• environment variables in the shell

• an .env file (or the file named by OMCP_ENV_FILE)

• Docker secrets under /run/secrets

Example .env:

OMCP_OVERLEAF_BASE_URL=https://overleaf.example.com
OMCP_OVERLEAF_EMAIL=service@example.com
OMCP_OVERLEAF_PASSWORD=...

The account used should have its own credentials and only the access it needs — this bridge logs in as that account and acts with its permissions. Giving it a personal account with full access to all projects, or admin access, is not recommended as the MCP client would be able to perform much more destructive actions than perhaps intended.

Running

stdio

uv run overleaf-mcp

Equivalently, as a module: uv run python -m overleaf_mcp.

By default, this speaks MCP over stdio, so it's meant to be launched by an MCP client (not run standalone). On startup, it logs in to Overleaf immediately and fails fast if that doesn't work — nothing is served on a broken session. After a successful login, the environment variables for email and password are not needed, and can be removed for the next run. The bridge will keep using the same session when possible.

To wire it into an MCP client, point the client at the overleaf-mcp command with the environment variables set, e.g. for a client that reads a JSON config with a mcpServers map:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "overleaf": {
      "command": "overleaf-mcp",
      "env": {
        "OMCP_OVERLEAF_BASE_URL": "https://overleaf.example.com",
        "OMCP_OVERLEAF_EMAIL": "service@example.com",
        "OMCP_OVERLEAF_PASSWORD": "..."
      }
    }
  }
}

If overleaf-mcp isn't on the client's PATH, point command at uv --directory /path/to/overleaf-mcp run overleaf-mcp instead.

Streamable HTTP

Pass --http to serve over streamable HTTP instead of stdio — useful when running the bridge as a standalone service (e.g. in a container) or with other proxy clients like LiteLLM rather than spawning it per-client:

uv run overleaf-mcp --http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

--host and --port are ignored for the default stdio transport. Point an HTTP-capable MCP client at http://<host>:<port>/mcp.

Tools

Tools are grouped into namespaces, each mounted as its own set of <namespace>_<tool> MCP tools. A namespace with CEP-specific tools is only mounted when the connected server is probed at startup and found to actually support that feature — a plain Overleaf CE server never exposes it, so clients don't need to know or care which kind of server they're talking to.

Every tool operates on an already-authenticated session established at startup — there is no per-call login, and no tool exposes credentials or session details to the client.

Each tool's docstring documents its own parameters and behavior in detail. For the concepts that span multiple tools — the project_id/path conventions, read-before-write safety, and typical multi-step workflows (editing, compiling, citations, review, history) — see skill/SKILL.md. It's written as a portable Claude skill: drop the skill folder into an MCP client's skills directory (e.g. .claude/skills/overleaf-mcp for Claude Code) to give it that context automatically.