Connect llmwiki to Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Claude Code

The llmwiki MCP server turns any MCP-compatible agent into a first-class wiki collaborator. Instead of scripting CLI calls and parsing stdout, agents can call structured tools - compile_wiki, query_wiki, get_context_pack, and more - and receive typed JSON results they can reason over. Start with wiki_status, then get_context_pack to retrieve evidence for your own reasoning without provider credentials. Use generation or write tools only when the task needs them. This guide walks you through starting the server, wiring it into Claude Desktop and Cursor, and understanding exactly what your agents can do once connected.

Prerequisites

Node.js 24 or later on the MCP client’s PATH
llmwiki installed globally: npm install -g llm-wiki-compiler
A wiki project directory (or an empty directory where one will be created)
An LLM provider configured for tools that need one (see the provider configuration docs for ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, etc.)

Setup

Start the MCP server

Run llmwiki serve from anywhere, pointing --root at your wiki project directory. The server uses stdio transport and requires no credentials at startup - read-only tools work immediately.

llmwiki serve --root /path/to/wiki-project

The process stays running and speaks the MCP protocol over stdin/stdout. Your MCP client manages the lifecycle.

Add to Claude Desktop

Open your Claude Desktop MCP configuration file (claude_desktop_config.json) and add an llmwiki entry under mcpServers. The npx invocation launches the server on demand - you do not need to keep a separate terminal session open.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "llmwiki": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "llm-wiki-compiler", "serve", "--root", "/path/to/wiki-project"],
      "env": {
        "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "sk-ant-..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop after saving the file. The llmwiki tools will appear in Claude’s tool picker.

Add to Cursor

Cursor uses the same MCP config format. Add the same JSON block to your Cursor MCP settings file. The env block is where you supply provider credentials - Cursor passes them through to the server process.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "llmwiki": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "llm-wiki-compiler", "serve", "--root", "/path/to/wiki-project"],
      "env": {
        "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "sk-ant-..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Verify with wiki_status

Ask Claude or your Cursor agent to call wiki_status. This tool is read-only and requires no credentials, so it works immediately and confirms the server is connected.A successful response looks like:

{
  "pages": { "concepts": 12, "queries": 3, "total": 15 },
  "sources": 8,
  "lastCompiledAt": "2026-06-10T14:22:00Z",
  "stalePages": [],
  "staleCount": 0,
  "orphanedPages": [],
  "orphanedCount": 0,
  "stateStatus": "ok",
  "pendingCandidates": 0,
  "pendingChanges": [],
  "pendingChangesCount": 0
}

What agents can do

Tools

The server exposes the tools below. Provider requirements are separate from write permissions: ingestion and OKF exchange can write files without an LLM provider.

Tool	What it does	Credentials required
`ingest_source`	Fetch a URL or local file into `sources/`	No
`compile_wiki`	Run the incremental compile pipeline; returns page counts and slugs	Yes
`query_wiki`	Answer with optional `save` to request a page after fresh citation validation and the profile gate; refusal returns the answer with `publicationRefusal` and no saved slug	Yes
`search_pages`	Return full content of pages relevant to a question	Yes
`read_page`	Read a single page by slug (checks `concepts/` then `queries/`)	No
`lint_wiki`	Run quality checks; returns structured diagnostics	No
`wiki_status`	Page and source counts, stale/orphaned pages, `stateStatus`, `pendingCandidates`	No
`get_context_pack`	Build a token-budgeted evidence pack (primary pages, chunks, graph neighbors, citations, freshness, warnings, suggested actions)	No
`run_eval`	Score wiki quality - fast suite is credential-free; full suite LLM-judges citation samples	Fast: No / Full: Yes
`export_okf`	Export the wiki as an Open Knowledge Format bundle under a project-confined output path	No
`import_okf`	Preview or stage an Open Knowledge Format bundle from a project-confined path as review candidates	No
`verify_artifact`	Verify a hash-pinned artifact reference and return metadata, without its body	No
`list_workflow_actions`	List available workflow actions	No
`describe_workflow_action`	Inspect an action and its input contract	No
`run_workflow_action`	Run a declared action, capped at staged writes; cannot approve human gates	Depends on action
`workflow_run_status`	Inspect a workflow run	No

get_context_pack vs query_wiki: these tools serve different purposes. get_context_pack packages evidence - it assembles a structured JSON envelope of relevant pages, semantic chunks, and citations that the agent uses for its own reasoning. query_wiki generates an answer - it calls the LLM and returns prose. Use get_context_pack when the agent needs grounded source material to reason over; use query_wiki when you want a finished answer. query_wiki and search_pages fall back to selecting pages without embeddings when the embedding call fails, and report it as an embedding-degraded warning in the result instead of failing. query_wiki’s pageIds and refs name only pages whose content reached the answer model; a selected page that can’t be read is named in a page-hydration-dropped warning. query_wiki has no review option. Its existing no-save path returns the answer and advisory citations without publication checks. See publication policy and recovery before using save: true.

MCP resources

Resources are passive read views of the wiki that agents can attach as context without calling a tool. All resources are read-only.

URI	Returns
`llmwiki://index`	Full `wiki/index.md` (auto-generated table of contents)
`llmwiki://concept/{slug}`	A single concept page - frontmatter and body
`llmwiki://query/{slug}`	A single saved query page
`llmwiki://sources`	List of ingested source files with metadata
`llmwiki://state`	Compilation state - per-source hashes and last compile times
`llmwiki://eval/report`	The most recent eval report
`llmwiki://eval/history`	Trend table of past eval runs

Credentials per tool call

The server starts without credentials. Provider credentials are read from the env block in your MCP config and forwarded to each pipeline call:

Read-only and filesystem-only tools (read_page, lint_wiki, wiki_status, ingest_source, export_okf, import_okf) - do not need provider credentials; normal path, project, and policy checks still apply.
LLM-dependent tools (compile_wiki, query_wiki, search_pages) - require a valid provider credential (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, etc.) in the environment at call time.
get_context_pack - credential-free by default. When embeddings are available and provider credentials are present, semantic retrieval is used. Without credentials or an embedding store, the tool falls back to lexical ranking and surfaces an embedding-store-missing or query-embedding-unavailable warning in the response - it does not fail.
run_eval - the fast suite (health score, citation coverage, corpus stats) runs without any credentials. The full suite adds LLM-judged citation scoring and requires a provider.

`get_context_pack` details

get_context_pack accepts several optional parameters for tuning the evidence pack:

prompt (required) - the task or question to assemble context for
budget - approximate output token budget (default 8 000)
depth - graph neighborhood traversal depth, 0–2 (default 1; 0 disables graph expansion)
topPages - maximum primary pages to include (default 5, max 20)
topChunks - maximum semantic chunks to surface (default 8, max 50)
includeSources (opt-in) - when true, materializes raw source line windows from claim-level citations

includeSources is opt-in because it returns raw content from files under sources/. Path confinement prevents reads outside sources/, but only enable source windows for agents you trust with the ingested source text.

Using `ingest_source` safely

ingest_source accepts a URL or an absolute local file path. Because it performs a server-side fetch and local file read, it is a trusted-input-only primitive - pass only URLs and paths you control. For untrusted or user-supplied content, use the SDK’s ingestText instead (see the SDK guide).

OKF tools

export_okf and import_okf give agents structured Open Knowledge Format access without parsing CLI output.

export_okf writes an OKF bundle. Its optional out path is confined under the project root.
import_okf reads an OKF bundle from a project-confined dir. It supports dryRun and is always staging-only; MCP does not expose the trusted live-write import path.
After import_okf stages pages, approve them with llmwiki review list, llmwiki review show, and llmwiki review approve.

After an agent calls compile_wiki, check wiki_status and look at the pendingCandidates field. If your wiki has a review policy configured in .llmwiki/config.json, some pages may be held for human review rather than written directly. A non-zero pendingCandidates means the agent has queued work that needs your approval before those pages go live - run llmwiki review list to inspect them.

Agent skill

The npm package ships an Agent Skills skill at skills/llmwiki/SKILL.md. It tells a skill-aware agent when a persistent wiki is worth building, and routes a connected agent to wiki_status and get_context_pack before any tool that writes or needs a provider. Copy or symlink the installed directory into your agent’s skills directory; for Claude Code that is ~/.claude/skills/:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
ln -s "$(npm root -g)/llm-wiki-compiler/skills/llmwiki" ~/.claude/skills/llmwiki

The skill never changes agent configuration on its own and does not grant publication approval; review candidates still go through llmwiki review.

Next steps

See CLI reference: llmwiki serve for all server flags and transport options.
For programmatic in-process control from TypeScript, see the SDK guide.

Get Started

Core Concepts

CLI Reference

Configuration

Guides

Troubleshooting

Connect llmwiki to Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Claude Code

Prerequisites

Setup

What agents can do

Tools

MCP resources

Credentials per tool call

`get_context_pack` details

Using `ingest_source` safely

OKF tools

Agent skill

Next steps

​Prerequisites

​Setup

​What agents can do

​Tools

​MCP resources

​Credentials per tool call

​get_context_pack details

​Using ingest_source safely

​OKF tools

​Agent skill

​Next steps

Prerequisites

Setup

What agents can do

Tools

MCP resources

Credentials per tool call

`get_context_pack` details

Using `ingest_source` safely

OKF tools

Agent skill

Next steps