Notion MCP Server: Connect Claude to Your Notes

You've built a Notion workspace with months of project notes, meeting summaries, and task databases. But finding the right page still means navigating, searching, and scrolling. With the Notion MCP server, you can ask Claude "what did we decide about the API redesign in September?" and it'll actually find and read the relevant pages to answer you.

Which Notion MCP server should you use?

There are two options in the wild. The official one — maintained by Notion Inc. at github.com/makenotion/notion-mcp-server — is what you want. It's built by the people who made Notion, uses the official API v1, and is actively maintained. There are also third-party Notion MCP servers, but the official one is the right call here.

Step 1: Create a Notion integration

Go to notion.so/my-integrations and click "New integration." Give it a name ("Claude MCP"), set it to Internal, and save. Copy the "Internal Integration Token" — this is your API key.

By default, the integration can't access any pages. You need to explicitly share each page (or a top-level section) with your integration.

Step 2: Share pages with your integration

In Notion, open the top-level page or workspace section you want Claude to access. Click the three dots menu → Connections → Connect to → and select your integration. All sub-pages under that parent automatically inherit access.

This access model is actually a security feature — Claude can only see what you explicitly shared, not your entire workspace. Share your project notes pages, not pages with personal information you don't want Claude reading.

Step 3: Configure Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "notion": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@notionhq/notion-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "OPENAPI_MCP_HEADERS": "{\"Authorization\": \"Bearer ntn_xxxxxxxxxxxxx\", \"Notion-Version\": \"2022-06-28\"}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace ntn_xxxxxxxxxxxxx with your actual integration token. Restart Claude Desktop.

What you can ask Claude once it's connected

Here's where the real value shows up. Notion is great for storing information but not always great for finding specific things fast. Claude fixes the discovery problem.

"Search my notes for anything about the auth architecture decision." Claude searches across all shared pages and surfaces the relevant ones.

"What are the open action items in my project tracker database?" Claude reads your database and lists unfinished tasks with their properties.

"Create a new page called 'Q1 2026 Goals' with the following content..." Claude drafts and creates the page directly in Notion.

Honestly, the "create a new page" capability is the one I use most. Dictating a page structure to Claude — let it format it properly and create it — is dramatically faster than building it by hand in Notion.

Can Claude update existing Notion pages?

Yes. The Notion MCP server supports updating page properties and appending blocks to existing pages. You can ask Claude to "update the status of the Authentication task in my project database to Done." Claude finds the right row and updates it.