Connecting Claude to Notion with MCP — and Why It’s a Big Deal for AI Workflows
Claude Can Now Access My Notion Workspace — Here’s Why That Matters
Welcome to the second edition of the AI Engineering Report. This week, I’m exploring how I used Notion’s recently released official MCP server to connect my AI chatbot (Claude) to the documents, spreadsheets, and calendar I use to manage my life and projects. I’ll cover:
What Notion is and how the new official MCP server works
Why this general idea—connecting AIs to real tools like Notion, Google Docs, JIRA, Confluence, or Linear—is so powerful
How this changes what AI agents can actually do
Notion MCP
If you’re not familiar with Notion, think of it like Google Docs but with a better UI - you can store and manage a document like a resume, a spreadsheet, or a calendar of events. I use it to keep track of almost everything in my life.
That’s why I was so excited to try the new official Notion MCP server.
If you’re not using a coding IDE like Cursor or Windsurf, your best option for an MCP-enabled chatbot is Claude Desktop. (OpenAI has announced MCP support for ChatGPT, but it’s not released yet. Similar story with Claude Web).
Once the Notion MCP server is installed, Claude can do things like:
“Look at my TODO list and pull up any tasks related to home improvement that are older than 6 months.”
Under the hood, Claude:
Locates the TODO document
Queries all items
Filters by date and natural language relevance (“home improvement”)
Uses the Notion API efficiently, but fills in the gaps where intelligence is needed
This hybrid model—API-level speed, AI-level reasoning—is the future of agentic workflows.
Why This Pattern Matters for Engineers (and most other people too)
I wrote about MCP in the first issue of this newsletter, and I’ll likely return to it again. It’s a simple concept, but it unlocks a huge surface area for useful AI applications.
LLMs are only as good as the information they have access to. They hallucinate. They make up details. And they often can’t tell when they’re doing it.
MCP changes that. It gives them structured, real-time access to the data you already use. Some early use cases that stand out:
Letting an AI coding assistant reference live business requirements while writing code
Forecasting project timelines using real calendars and backlogs
Understanding team org charts and routing questions to the right person
These use cases don’t require “superintelligence.” They just require access. MCP provides that access.
Want to Try It?
If you want to try the Notion MCP setup, I wrote a short tutorial here:
How to Let Claude Access Your Notion data via MCP
I originally planned to cover building a custom MCP server (e.g., for a niche internal tool or a more streamlined Notion setup). But before doing that, it helps to see what’s possible with an official, full-featured one.
Thanks for reading. If this was useful, feel free to forward it or reply with thoughts!