Overleaf Git MCP

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

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

It is built for real research-writing workflows, where LaTeX projects are large, most edits touch only a small part of a file, and repeatedly transferring entire files 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 easily have an 80–100 KB main.tex file — roughly 35K tokens. A naive agent workflow re-reads or rewrites that entire file even when only one sentence changes.

The examples below show the kind of efficiency gains this design targets:

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

Actual savings depend on the project structure, client behavior, and the edit being requested.

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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