NotebookLM MCP (khengyun)
A no-browser take on NotebookLM automation — talks to an RPC backend instead of driving Chrome, and can merge sources across notebooks or generate mind maps.
License: MIT · Best for: Developers · Anyone merging sources across multiple notebooks
What it is
A Python-based MCP server for NotebookLM built on an RPC client (notebooklm-py) rather than browser automation — there's no Chrome process to keep running at runtime. Its 28 tools cover chat, notebook and source management, plus two things the other servers in this list don't: merging sources from multiple notebooks into a new one, and generating and reading mind maps.
Why NotebookLM users should care
The no-browser architecture is the headline difference: lighter to run, nothing to keep alive between calls, at the cost of the DOM-level citation scraping the browser-driven alternatives support more directly. If your workflow is less about pulling citations and more about consolidating scattered notebooks — merging sources from three different notebooks into one, say, or reading back a mind map programmatically — this is the only one of the three built for that.
Key capabilities
- No-browser RPC backend: Talks to NotebookLM over notebooklm-py instead of driving Chrome, so there's no persistent browser process to manage.
- Cross-notebook source merging: create_notebook_from_sources combines sources from multiple existing notebooks into a new one.
- Mind maps: Generate, list, and read NotebookLM mind maps as MCP tools — not exposed by the other two servers here.
- Sharing controls: Set a notebook public or share it with a specific user directly from an MCP tool call.
- 28 tools across chat, manage, compose, Studio, and share: A broader tool surface than a pure Q&A server, aimed at notebook housekeeping as much as chat.
Installation summary
Requires Python 3.10+. Install it, run a one-time login, then initialize it against a notebook URL to write a local config file before starting the server. There's no npm package for this one — it's a Python project distributed on PyPI, not a Node one.
uv add notebooklm-mcp && uv run notebooklm login
Official links
FAQ
Why no Chrome/browser requirement?
It talks to NotebookLM through notebooklm-py, an RPC client, instead of automating a real browser session — lighter to run, but citation extraction isn't as deep as the browser-driven alternatives.
Is there an npm package?
No — this is a Python project distributed on PyPI, installed with uv or pip, not npm.
What's the mind map feature for?
NotebookLM can generate a visual mind map of a notebook's sources; this server exposes tools to generate, list, and read those mind maps programmatically, which neither of the other two servers here currently supports.
Is it actively maintained?
Yes — it has the smallest GitHub following of the three, but has shipped updates as recently as mid-2026.