Visualizing the bridge between Overleaf and AI through MCP

“I tried to argue with Overleaf, but it said my syntax was invalid.”

Overleaf MCP

A VS Code extension and MCP server for Overleaf. Sign in once, see all your Overleaf projects in a VS Code side panel, open and edit them live, compile and read the PDF right next to your source, sync any project to a local folder, and give AI assistants (anything that speaks the Model Context Protocol) the tools to search, read, edit, and compile your papers — one project or many at a time. 🧠

🔗 Repo: https://github.com/GhoshSrinjoy/Overleaf-mcp · ⬇️ Downloads: latest release

Your Overleaf projects in the side panel, a file open live from Overleaf, and its PDF beside it.

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Executive Summary

Version 2 is a rewrite around a single, faster core:

• Live, not polled. The server talks to Overleaf the way the Overleaf editor does: one persistent realtime connection per project. Reading a file takes milliseconds instead of a git pull per call, and edits are applied as small operational-transform updates that merge with whatever collaborators are typing. They show up live in their browser.
• See what you write. Compile on Overleaf and read the PDF in a VS Code tab: it recompiles as the project changes (your saves, collaborators, AI edits), lists errors with links to the line, and jumps between source and PDF with SyncTeX.
• Works on every plan. Signing in with the Overleaf website session needs no paid Git integration and no per-project tokens. Git tokens still work for headless servers (your old projects.json keeps working).
• No infrastructure. Redis and BullMQ are gone. Per-project queues and file locks handle concurrency; the server is a single file you can download and run with Node.js.
• Built for agents. Exact search-and-replace edits, a “suggest mode” that records AI edits as tracked changes for you to accept or reject, ripgrep plus ranked (BM25) search across projects, a LaTeX outline that follows \input, and compile with errors reported as file:line.

In short: Overleaf ⇄ live connection ⇄ VS Code panel + PDF preview + local folders + MCP ⇄ your AI assistant.

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Features

VS Code extension

• 📚 Projects panel listing every project (pinned first, then by last update), expandable into its live file tree. Collaborators’ file changes appear immediately.
• ✏️ Live editing of Overleaf files (overleaf:// documents): saving pushes your change; edits from collaborators or AI tools reload open files; if a document changed while you edited, your save is merged on top instead of overwriting it.