Cursor

Cursor is the AI-first IDE. Its agent chat consumes any tool exposed via MCP, which means Korely plugs in cleanly: search your vault, read past PR discussions, save new design notes — without leaving the editor.

Prerequisites

• Cursor 0.42+ installed. Earlier versions don't have MCP support. Check Cursor → About Cursor.
• Korely installed with a vault. If you haven't, do the Quickstart first.
• Node 18+ on your PATH (for npx). Run node --version in any terminal to verify.

1. Open the MCP settings panel

1. Open Cursor.
2. Cursor → Settings → Cursor Settings (or Cmd-, on macOS, Ctrl-, on Windows/Linux).
3. Click MCP in the left rail.
4. Click Add new MCP server.

You'll see a form with three fields: Name, Type, Command.

2. Fill in the Korely config

Cursor's MCP form doesn't have a separate env-vars field in older versions. The workaround is to put the env inline in the command:

KORELY_VAULT_ROOT=$HOME/Korely npx -y @korely/mcp-server

In newer Cursor versions (0.45+) the form has an explicit env section. Use that if you have it — easier to keep tidy.

3. Save and restart

Click Save. Cursor doesn't auto-reload MCP servers — quit completely (Cmd-Q) and relaunch.

On relaunch, Cursor spawns the Korely server in the background. You'll see a green dot next to korely in Settings → MCP if it connected.

4. Verify in agent chat

Open a project in Cursor, then open the chat panel (Cmd-L). Switch to Agent mode in the chat selector — that's the mode that uses MCP tools.

Click the wrench icon in the chat input area. You should see Korely tools listed:

korely
  ├── korely_search
  ├── korely_read_item
  ├── korely_list_notes
  ├── korely_list_folders
  ├── korely_get_related
  ├── korely_save_note
  └── korely_create_task

Smoke test by asking Cursor:

"Search my Korely vault for any note about MCP."

The agent should call korely_search, show what it found, and cite the source filenames.

Common issues

The green dot stays red, or never appears

Cursor failed to spawn the server. Check the MCP log: Cursor → Settings → MCP → korely has an "Output" toggle that surfaces stdout/stderr from the server process.

Most common causes:

• npx not on PATH — use the absolute path to npx (find with which npx).
• Network blocked at npx install — corporate firewall blocking the @korely/mcp-server package. Pre-install with npm install -g @korely/mcp-server then change the Command field to korely-mcp-server (the binary the package exposes).
• Vault path syntax — make sure $HOME expands. If Cursor doesn't run the command in a shell, replace with the absolute path: /Users/me/Korely.

Wrench icon doesn't show Korely tools

You're probably in Chat mode, not Agent mode. Chat mode doesn't expose MCP tools. Switch with the dropdown at the top of the chat panel.

"Vault path does not exist" in the server log

The vault directory needs to exist before the server starts. Create it once:

mkdir -p ~/Korely

Then in Cursor → Settings → MCP click the ↻ refresh icon next to korely to restart the server.

Power user tips

Per-workspace MCP config

Cursor 0.46+ supports per-workspace MCP config via .cursor/mcp.json at the project root. Useful for monorepos where each subproject points at a different vault folder:

// .cursor/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "korely": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@korely/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "KORELY_VAULT_ROOT": "${PROJECT_DIR}/notes"
      }
    }
  }
}

${PROJECT_DIR} resolves to the workspace root. Commit the file to git so the team gets the same vault wiring.

Reduce token noise from list operations

korely_list_notes and korely_list_folders can return large arrays on big vaults. Set KORELY_DEFAULT_LIMIT=20 in the env block to cap default results — agents that want more pass an explicit limit parameter.