Overleaf Git MCP

A model-agnostic MCP server for token-efficient reading, editing, and synchronization of Overleaf LaTeX projects through Git.

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Overleaf Git MCP connects Codex, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and other MCP clients that support local STDIO servers to your Overleaf projects.

It is designed for real research-writing workflows in which LaTeX projects are large, edits are usually local, and repeatedly transferring an entire file wastes context and tokens. The server provides targeted patching, sparse checkout, diff-based re-reading, section-aware access, and explicit Git push operations.

Key capabilities

• Read project files and inspect LaTeX section structure.
• Apply targeted edits without rewriting complete files.
• Commit and push changes back to Overleaf through its Git bridge.
• Skip figures and other binary assets during synchronization.
• Return only changed content on repeated reads when smart diff mode is enabled.
• Manage multiple Overleaf projects from one local MCP server.
• Keep write operations local until an explicit push_changes call.

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Why use this MCP server?

A thesis or long paper can contain an 80–100 KB main.tex file, which may correspond to roughly 35K tokens. A naive agent workflow may repeatedly read or rewrite that entire file even when only one sentence changes.

The examples below illustrate the intended efficiency gains:

Scenario	Naive workflow	Overleaf Git MCP	Expected effect
Read a 35K-token file twice	70K tokens	First read + subsequent diff	About 50% less repeated content
Replace a 50-word sentence	Rewrite the full file	About 100–200 tokens with patch_file	More than 99% less generated text
Clone a figure-heavy project	Download all assets	Download supported text files only	Lower bandwidth and faster setup
Revisit the same file in one session	Return the full file each time	Return only detected changes	Stable context usage

These figures are illustrative and depend on the project structure, client behavior, and requested edit.

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What is new in v1.1.0?

Sparse checkout

Only supported text files are synchronized:

• .tex
• .bib
• .bst
• .cls
• .sty
• .bbl
• .cfg

Images, PDFs, and other binary assets are skipped. This keeps clone and pull operations lightweight for projects with many figures.

Read/write separation

• Read operations pull the latest state from Overleaf.
• Write operations modify the local working copy without automatically pulling.
• push_changes pulls before committing and pushing, reducing the risk of overwriting remote work.

Smart diff mode

After the first read_file call, subsequent reads