Colab Drive MCP server

Colab Drive MCP

<!-- mcp-name: io.github.YummyTastyCode/colab-drive-mcp -->

An MCP server for safely inspecting, editing, and synchronizing Google Colab-compatible .ipynb notebooks through Google Drive.

[!IMPORTANT]

**This is a notebook file synchronization server, not a notebook execution

service.** It transfers and edits .ipynb files through Google Drive. It

does not connect to Colab runtimes, execute cells, click Run all, keep

sessions alive, automate the Colab browser UI, or bypass Colab limits.

Use this MCP when an AI agent needs to prepare a notebook locally, synchronize it with Drive, inspect completed outputs, or return an edited notebook to the user. Open and execute the synchronized notebook separately in Colab, Jupyter, VS Code, or another notebook runtime.

Features

permissions, missing files, and rate limits.

• Inspect and edit notebook cells without loading the entire notebook.
• Create, search, copy, upload, and download notebooks.
• Report live upload and download progress to MCP clients that request it.
• Compare local and Drive notebook copies using Drive metadata and content MD5.
• Keep local file access inside a configured root directory.
• Normalize Colab-specific stream output metadata during downloads.
• Diagnose Google Drive setup without unexpectedly opening a browser.
• Return actionable errors for missing credentials, expired authorization,

Non-goals

• Starting, controlling, or monitoring a Google Colab runtime.
• Detecting whether a Colab runtime is connected, busy, or executing a file.
• Executing notebook cells locally or remotely.
• Browser automation, automatic Run all, or unattended Colab sessions.
• Circumventing Colab quotas, idle timeouts, access controls, or usage policies.
• Deploying or running the project contained inside a notebook.

AI Contract

The MCP initialization response includes server-wide instructions that define this project as file synchronization only. Tool descriptions repeat the same boundary where it matters.

manifest.0 provides the same purpose, capabilities, and non-goals as a typed Zero language contract for agents and repository tooling.

Tools

Setup

• getgoogledrive_status: diagnose dependencies, credentials, token, and scope.
• authorizegoogledrive: explicitly open the Google OAuth browser flow.

Local notebooks

• listlocalnotebooks, getlocalnotebook, createlocalnotebook
• addlocalcell, updatelocalcell, deletelocalcell
• searchlocalcells, clearlocaloutputs

Google Drive

• listdrivenotebooks, pulldrivenotebook, pushlocalnotebook
• getnotebooksyncstatus, copydrivenotebook, getcolab_url

pulldrivenotebook and pushlocalnotebook synchronize notebook files. They send MCP progress notifications when the client supplies a progress token, but clients decide whether and how to display those notifications. They never execute notebook code. getcolaburl returns a URL but does not open a browser.

getnotebooksyncstatus compares the local notebook's upload representation with Drive's MD5 checksum and returns insync, differs, remote_only, or unknown. It also returns Drive metadata such as modification time and version. It cannot determine whether Colab is currently executing the notebook because Google Drive does not expose Colab runtime activity.

Install

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.