Everything MCP Server

Model Context Protocol server for Everything, the instant file-search engine for Windows. Wraps Everything's es.exe command-line client and exposes it as two MCP tools.

Written in TypeScript, shipped as a single ESM bundle.

Prerequisites

Windows only. Everything must be installed and running — es.exe is a client for Everything's index, not a search engine of its own.

1. Install Everything and let it index your drives.
2. es.exe is found automatically in the usual install locations. Set ES_PATH to override, or rely on the copy bundled in bin/ (see Bundled es.exe).

Installation

No clone, no build, no paths to fill in — point your MCP client at the published package:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "everything": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@eastgold15/everything-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Or with Bun:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "everything": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@eastgold15/everything-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

ES_PATH is optional — the server finds es.exe in the usual install locations and falls back to the copy shipped inside the package. Set it only to force a specific binary:

"env": { "ES_PATH": "C:\Program Files\Everything\es.exe" }

From source

git clone https://github.com/eastgold15/everything-mcp.git
cd everything-mcp
bun install
bun run build

Then use "command": "node" with "args": ["<path>/dist/index.mjs"], or run bun link and invoke everything-mcp directly.

Tools

search

Searches the Everything index. Returns structured JSON, not raw text:

{
  "resultCount": 2,
  "truncated": false,
  "results": [
    {
      "path": "G:\api-gen\package.json",
      "name": "package.json",
      "size": 1136,
      "dateModified": "2026-08-01T01:06:03"
    }
  ]
}

resultCount: 0 means the query ran and matched nothing. A malformed query or an unreachable Everything service is reported as an error instead — the two are never conflated.

| Option | Type | Notes | |---|---|---| | query | string | Required. Everything search syntax. | | maxResults | number | Default 50, max 1000. | | regex | boolean | Treat the query as a regular expression. | | caseSensitive | boolean | Match case. | | wholeWord | boolean | Match whole words only. | | matchPath | boolean | Match the full path, not just the file name. | | foldersOnly | boolean | Folders only. Mutually exclusive with filesOnly. | | filesOnly | boolean | Files only. Mutually exclusive with foldersOnly. | | sortBy | string | name, path, size, extension, date-created, date-modified, date-accessed. | | sortDescending | boolean | Reverse the sort. | | showSize | boolean | Include size in bytes. | | showDateModified | boolean | Include modification time (ISO-8601). | | parentPath | string | Restrict to this directory and its subdirectories. Spaces need no escaping. |

get_file_info

Given a path (or bare file name), returns size, all three timestamps, and decoded attribute flags:

{
  "path": "G:\api-gen\package.json",
  "name": "package.json",
  "size": 1136,
  "dateCreated": "2026-08-01T01:03:51",
  "dateModified": "2026-08-01T01:06:03",
  "dateAccessed": "2026-08-02T18:47:34",
  "attributes": ["archive"]
}

An unindexed path is an error, not an empty result.

Query syntax

Terms are space-separated and combine with AND. The server splits the query into the separate arguments es.exe expects, so multi-term queries work as written:

name:package.json !path:node_modules      exclude a directory
*.md|*.txt                                either extension
ext:jpg;png;gif                           extension list
size:>1mb                                 larger than 1 MB
dm:today                                  modified today
path:"Program Files"                      quoted phrase, space preserved

Prefix a term with ! to exclude it. Wrap a term in double quotes to keep spaces inside it.

Development

bun install
bun test            # 62 tests
bun run type-check   # tsc --noEmit
bun run build       # packem → dist/index.mjs
bun run dev         # rebuild on change

| Path | Contents | |---|---| | src/index.ts | Server setup and tool registration — no business logic. | | src/es/ | es.exe interaction: path resolution, argv construction, execution, output parsing. | | src/tools/ | One file per MCP tool: JSON Schema plus handler. | | src/types/ | Single source of truth for interfaces. | | src/__tests__/ | Unit tests, plus end-to-end tests that skip when es.exe is absent. |

Bundled es.exe

bin/es.exe is voidtools' ES 1.1.0.27, unmodified:

• Source: https://www.voidtools.com/ES-1.1.0.27.zip
• SHA-256: 5101b3a6d9542de378e077f4b8c66c4e608d3bff088092427749b65fbb18b342

It is probed last, after every system install, so a version you upgrade yourself always wins. Everything must still be running for it to return anything.

Notes on es.exe

Behaviours worth knowing, all verified against ES 1.1.0.37:

• Search terms are separate arguments. es.exe [options] search text builds its query from multiple argv entries; it never re-splits the spaces inside one. Passing a whole query as a single argument matches nothing, silently, with exit code 0.
• Errors go to stdout, not stderr. A bad switch prints Error 6: Unknown switch. followed by the full help text to stdout and leaves stderr empty. The exit code is the only reliable failure signal.
• Exit code 0 covers both success and no matches. Documented non-zero codes run 1–8; 8 means the Everything client is not running.
• -path recurses, -parent does not. -parent-path searches the parent of the given directory, which is rarely what a caller means.

Credits

• voidtools for Everything and es.exe.
• Originally based on danielsimonjr/everything-mcp; rewritten in TypeScript with a test suite.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.