Filesystem — AI over your local files

Let the AI list, read and search files outside your vault: logs, exports, whole repos. No token, no account.

MCP · Filesystem — the AI reads files outside your vault

Use case: analyze logs, summarize a specs folder, inventory a repo — without linking the files into the vault. The ideal server to try MCP with: no token, no account.

Configuration (.znote/mcp.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/Users/me/Projects", "/Users/me/Downloads"]
    }
  }
}

Every path passed as an argument is an allowed directory — the server refuses anything outside them. First launch: npx downloads the package, allow a few seconds.

Exposed tools: read_text_file, write_file, list_directory, directory_tree, search_files, get_file_info, move_file…

Examples

Folder inventory

List the contents of /Users/me/Projects, then give me a table of the
subfolders with their last-modified dates.

Log analysis

Read /Users/me/Projects/api/logs/error.log and give me the top 5 most
frequent errors with one sample stack trace each.

Multi-file search

Find every TODO.md file under /Users/me/Projects and consolidate their
open items into a single prioritized list.

A single tool, read-only

Read /Users/me/Downloads/export.csv and tell me how many rows have an
empty "status" field.

Tips

tools=filesystem.read_text_file restricts the model to reading: no accidental writes possible.
Combine with your notes: "compare @specs/api.md with the actual code in /Users/me/Projects/api/routes/".