Cowork Semantic Search MCP Server

Cowork Semantic Search MCP server is a locally run integration for AI assistants that speak the Model Context Protocol. AI coding tools are powerful, but they have blind spots when it comes to your local files:.

What you get

• Frozen knowledge — -- training data has a cutoff. Your latest reports, notes, and contracts don't exist in the model's world
• Context window limits — -- you can't paste 500 documents into a prompt
• No cross-file search — -- your AI tool can read one file at a time, but can't search across your entire document library for the relevant pieces

What the assistant can call

Once Cowork Semantic Search is connected, these are the calls the assistant has available:

• index_folder — Index or re-index all documents in a folder. Incremental -- skips unchanged files
• semantic_search — Search indexed documents using natural language. Supports vector and hybrid modes
• get_index_status — Show total chunks, file count, and list of indexed files
• reindex_file — Force re-index a single file, bypassing the hash cache

Setting it up

Setup follows the usual MCP pattern — install or clone the server, register it in your client's configuration file, restart the client.

Configuration and credentials

You will need one environment variable: PYTHONPATH. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.

Choosing this one

Among the developer tooling options, the useful question is rarely "what can it do" but "what does it cost you to run" — permissions, credentials, and how much of your context its toolset consumes. Cowork Semantic Search's toolset — index_folder, semantic_search, get_index_status and 1 more — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by zhubit; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.

SyncDev reviews every entry in this directory against the project's own documentation before publishing, and revisits them as servers change.

Before you rely on it

• It runs with your machine's permissions. That is convenient and also the reason to think about what you point it at before you approve a tool call.
• MCP clients confirm each tool call by default. Leave that on until you have watched what the cowork semantic search mcp server does with a few real requests.