rote-toolkit

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Rote Toolkit

Rote Toolkit is a TypeScript toolkit for connecting to and extending your Rote note system from terminal workflows and AI agents. It uses the Rote OpenKey API for simple, reusable authentication.

Main project repository: Rabithua/rote.

Features

• CLI mode: quickly create and search notes from terminal.
• MCP mode: run as a Model Context Protocol server so AI tools (Claude/Cursor/VS Code) can safely read and write Rote notes.
• Simple auth: configure OpenKey once and reuse it.

Install

Node.js v18 or higher is required.

npm install -g rote-toolkit

Configure Auth

Run this command once:

rote config

You will be prompted for:

• Rote API URL: for example https://your-rote-domain.com
• OpenKey: your API key

Credentials are stored at: ~/.rote-toolkit/config.json.

CLI Usage

1) Create a note

rote add "Today I learned MCP and it is great"

Add tags, publish as public, and pin:

rote add "Built a new frontend component" -t "code,frontend,React" --public --pin

2) Search and list notes

Search notes containing MCP:

rote search "MCP"

List recent notes (with archive/tag filters):

rote list --limit 5 --archived -t "knowledge"

List explore notes (no auth required):

rote explore --limit 5

MCP Usage

Do I need pre-installation?

No. If you configure MCP with npx or bunx, the package is downloaded and run automatically when the MCP server starts.

Global install is only needed when you want to run commands directly on your machine:

npm install -g rote-toolkit

1) Configure credentials first (one time)

rote config

2) Manual local start (optional, for debugging)

These two commands are equivalent:

rote mcp
rote-mcp

3) Claude Desktop example

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rote-toolkit": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "-p", "rote-toolkit@latest", "rote-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

4) VS Code example

{
  "servers": {
    "rote-toolkit": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["-y", "--package", "rote-toolkit@latest", "rote-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Version strategy

• Track latest: rote-toolkit@latest
• Reproducible setup: pin a version, for example rote-toolkit@0.3.3

Common errors

• could not determine executable to run: usually incorrect npx args, use -p rote-toolkit@... rote-mcp.
• unknown command 'rote-mcp' (bunx): include --package, for example bunx -y --package rote-toolkit@latest rote-mcp.

Available AI Tools

• rote_create_note
• rote_update_note
• rote_delete_note
• rote_search_notes
• rote_list_notes
• rote_explore_notes

Local Development

API Key Usage Guide

npm install
npm run build
npm run dev -- --help

Publish to npm

Login first:

npm login

Build + bump version + publish:

npm run release:patch

Also available:

npm run release:minor
npm run release:major

Release script steps:

• Ensure git workspace is clean
• Check npm login state
• npm run build
• npm pack --dry-run
• npm version <patch|minor|major>
• npm publish