Assistants

On the Mac, Claude and other AI assistants can work with your notebooks. Ask one to find a note, sum up a table, add a batch of notes, or set up the fields for a new notebook. It works through the Neatbase app running on your Mac, so your notebooks never pass through a Neatbase server.

Pro, Mac only: Assistants need a Neatbase Pro subscription and the Mac app. They work only while Neatbase is open.

Neatbase connects to assistants through MCP (the Model Context Protocol), the standard Claude and many other assistants use to reach apps and tools.

Turning Assistants On

Assistants are off until you turn them on, separately on each Mac.

  1. Open Neatbase › Settings and choose the Assistants tab.
  2. Turn on Allow Assistants to Use Neatbase.
  3. Connect your assistant, as described below.

Click What Assistants Can Do to read exactly what you're allowing before you turn it on.

Connecting Claude Desktop

  1. In Neatbase's Assistants settings, click Copy Setup next to Claude Desktop.
  2. In Claude Desktop, open Settings › Developer and click Edit Config.
  3. Paste the setup into claude_desktop_config.json. If the file already lists other servers, add the neatbase entry alongside them.
  4. Restart Claude Desktop.

The setup looks like this, with the path to your copy of Neatbase:

{
  "mcpServers" : {
    "neatbase" : {
      "args" : [],
      "command" : "/Applications/Neatbase.app/Contents/MacOS/neatbase-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Connecting Claude Code

Click Copy Command next to Claude Code, then paste it in Terminal. It adds Neatbase for all your projects:

claude mcp add --scope user neatbase -- '/Applications/Neatbase.app/Contents/MacOS/neatbase-mcp'

Other Assistants

Any assistant that supports MCP servers launched from a command can use Neatbase. Point it at the neatbase-mcp program inside the app, at Neatbase.app/Contents/MacOS/neatbase-mcp, with no arguments.

What Assistants Can Do

Assistants can:

  • List your notebooks and read their fields
  • Find notes by searching, filtering, and sorting, and read any note
  • Create, update, and delete notes
  • Add, change, and delete fields

They can't change your settings, and they never see Secret fields. Formula and Image fields are read-only to them, and layout fields and buttons are left out. In a notebook shared with you as view-only, assistants can read but not change anything.

Anything an assistant changes is an ordinary edit. It shows up in the app right away and syncs to your other devices like any change you make yourself.

Ask before deleting. Assistants can delete notes and fields. Good assistants confirm first, but review what you ask for, especially in notebooks other people share with you.

The Tools

For anyone building with MCP, Neatbase offers ten tools:

Tool What it does
list_notebooks Lists your notebooks
get_notebook A notebook's fields, with each field's type and the values it takes
list_notes Finds notes, with search, filters, sorting, and paging
get_note Reads one note
create_note Creates a note
update_note Changes a note's values
delete_note Deletes a note
add_field Adds a field to a notebook
update_field Changes a field
delete_field Deletes a field

Values are set by field name.

Privacy

Your notebooks stay on your Mac until an assistant reads them. What an assistant reads is sent to the company that makes it, together with your conversation, and is covered by that company's privacy policy. Neatbase sends nothing on its own.

Only programs running on your Mac under your own user account can connect, and only while assistants are turned on. To cut off every assistant at once, turn off Allow Assistants to Use Neatbase.

If It Doesn't Work

  • Make sure Neatbase is open. If it isn't, the assistant sees the tools but each one answers "open Neatbase".
  • Check the switch in Settings › Assistants, and that Pro is active.
  • Moved the app? The setup points at where Neatbase was when you copied it. Copy it again and replace the old entry.
  • Restart the assistant after changing its configuration.