Software agencies and dev shops
Meeting notes your coding agent can search, from an AI note taker without bot invites
Ghosty Notes records client calls on your Mac, writes the notes to markdown files in a folder you choose, and exposes that whole history to Claude Code, Cursor or ChatGPT through a local MCP server on the free tier.
Ghosty Notes runs on macOS on a Mac with Apple Silicon, because transcription happens on the device; Intel Macs are not supported.
no notetaker in this list
what the other side sees while you record
A dev shop loses the same thing on every project. The client explains, on a call, why the integration has to behave a certain way. Three weeks later someone opens a pull request that quietly contradicts it, and nobody can find the moment the decision was made. The recording exists somewhere in a vendor dashboard, the summary skipped the detail, and searching it means leaving the editor.
Ghosty Notes closes that gap in a specific way. Recording runs off the Mac system audio, so no extra attendee appears in the call and nobody has to explain a bot to the client. Speech becomes text using a model running on the machine itself. The output is a plain markdown file in a folder you pick, which means it can sit in a repo, in a project directory, or in a synced notes vault, and it is diffable, greppable and yours.
The part that matters for a team already living inside an AI editor is the MCP server. It runs locally, it is on the free tier, and it points at your full local history rather than a rolling window. Ask your agent what the client said about rate limiting on the March call and it reads the files on disk to answer.
What an agent-queryable meeting record actually is, and where we really stand
Start with the honest competitive picture, because the usual pitch here is false. We are not the ones who brought MCP to meeting notes. Granola ships an MCP server. Fireflies ships one. We arrived after both. The difference is not the existence of the feature, it is the terms attached to it. Granola gates its transcript, search and folder MCP tools behind a paid plan, and caps free MCP access at personal notes from the last 30 days. That is a reasonable business decision and it is also the exact shape of the thing that breaks an agency workflow, because the answer you need is usually in the kickoff call from two quarters ago, not last Tuesday.
Ours is on the free tier, it is not metered by call or by query, and it reads the full local history. That is possible because of where the data sits. A hosted tool has to charge for MCP access, since every query is a request against their infrastructure holding their copy of your transcripts. Our MCP server is a local process reading local files. The marginal cost of your thousandth query is the same as your first, which is nothing, so there is nothing to meter.
The mechanism is worth spelling out, because "MCP-native" gets used as a slogan. MCP is a protocol that lets an AI client call tools exposed by a server. Our server runs on your Mac and exposes your meeting history as tools: search by date, participant or keyword, pull a full transcript, pull the summary. Your editor connects to it over a local connection. No transcript leaves the machine for a search to happen. When the model is a local one, the query and the results never leave either. When you point your editor at a hosted model, that model sees whatever text the tool returned, which is the ordinary trade you already make every time you paste a file into a chat.
The platform constraint cuts both ways and you should size it before you download. Ghosty Notes runs on macOS on Apple Silicon. In the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, 32.9% of professional developers reported using macOS, against 49.5% for Windows and 27.7% for Ubuntu. So this is realistic for the Mac-heavy end of the market, common in design-led and product agencies, and it is not something a mixed Windows and Linux team can standardise on. We would rather you know that from the page than from the download.
- Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025
- Professional developers reported Windows at 49.5%, macOS at 32.9% and Ubuntu at 27.7%.
- Granola's own documentation
- Transcript, search and folder MCP tools sit behind a paid plan, and free MCP access is capped at personal notes from the last 30 days.
How it fits an agency week
Point the notes folder at the project
Set the notes directory to somewhere your work already lives, a client project folder or a notes vault. Each meeting lands as a markdown file with the transcript and the summary. If that folder is inside a repo, add it to .gitignore unless the client has agreed the transcripts belong in version control.
Record the call without announcing a tool
Start recording when the standup, the scoping call or the demo begins. Audio comes from the Mac system output, so there is no extra participant in Zoom, Meet or Teams, and nobody spends the first two minutes asking what the bot is. You still tell people you are recording, that part is on you.
Point your editor at the MCP server
Connect Claude Code, Cursor or another MCP client to the local server. From then on the agent can answer questions from your meeting history in the same session it is writing code: what the client said about the auth flow, which date the scope changed, who asked for the export format.
Use it where the decisions get argued
The two moments it pays for itself are pull request review and scope disputes. Instead of remembering, ask the agent for the meeting where the behaviour was agreed, and paste the paragraph into the review comment or the invoice discussion with the date attached.
What development teams ask before they install it
- Half our team is on Windows or Linux. Can we standardise on this?
- No, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. It runs on macOS on Apple Silicon only. macOS was reported by 32.9% of professional developers in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, so roughly a third of the profession can run it and the rest cannot. In a mixed team it works as a personal tool for the Mac users, not as the shared standard for everyone.
- Granola and Fireflies already have MCP servers. What is different here?
- The terms, not the feature. Granola gates transcript, search and folder MCP tools behind a paid plan and caps free MCP at personal notes from the last 30 days. Ours is free, unmetered, and covers your full local history because it is a local process reading local files. If a paid plan and a 30-day window suit you, their tools are good and you should use them.
- Is there a shared library so the whole studio can search each other?
- There is not. There is no team plan, no admin console and no cross-user search. Each person has their own notes on their own machine. A studio can buy several individual licences, and people can share a markdown file the same way they share any other file, but nobody can browse a colleague's meeting history from an admin view because no such view exists.
- Do the transcripts end up somewhere I have to explain to a client?
- The recording and the transcription happen on your Mac and the audio never leaves it on any tier. If you switch on Pro's hosted AI models, the transcript text goes to that service to be summarised or queried, and the audio still does not. In local mode nothing is sent at all. If a client contract restricts where their material can be processed, that distinction is the thing to put in front of them.
- We already have a local Whisper script. Why add an app?
- If your script covers you, keep it. The parts you would be replacing are the live capture from a running call, the meeting-shaped output with participants and dates, and the MCP server your editor can query without you writing the glue. Raw file transcription on its own is a solved problem with plenty of good tools.
Against the tools agencies actually pick between
| Ghosty Notes | Alternatives | |
|---|---|---|
| Where speech becomes text | On your Mac, using a model on the device | Granola, Fireflies and Otter process on their servers |
| Bot in the call | No participant joins, audio comes from system output | Fireflies and Otter join as a visible participant; Granola captures system audio |
| MCP access | Free tier, unmetered, full local history | Granola gates transcript, search and folder tools behind a paid plan, free MCP capped at 30 days of personal notes |
| Where the notes live | Markdown files in a folder you choose | In the vendor account, exportable |
| Works with no network | Yes, in local mode | No |
| Platform coverage | macOS on Apple Silicon only | Mac, Windows and web across the three |
| Shared team library | No, single-user notes on each machine | Yes, with admin controls and seats |
Questions from developers
- What exactly does the MCP server expose?
- Your meeting history as tools an MCP client can call: search by date, participant, topic or keyword, fetch a full transcript, and fetch the summary for a meeting. It runs as a local process against the markdown files on disk, so it reflects whatever is in your notes folder right now.
- If I turn on Pro's hosted models, what gets sent?
- The transcript text, and only for the feature you switched on, such as a hosted summary or fast cross-meeting chat. The audio never leaves your Mac on any tier. In local mode nothing is sent at all, because the model runs on the machine.
- What hardware does it need?
- A Mac with Apple Silicon. Transcription runs on the device and uses the neural hardware in those chips, so Intel Macs are not supported. There is no Windows or Linux build.
- Can I put the notes folder in a git repo?
- Technically yes, they are plain markdown. Think about it first. A client transcript in a shared repo is a client transcript that every contractor with clone access can read, so most teams keep the folder outside the repo or ignore it, and copy the specific paragraph they need into an issue or a pull request.
- Does it work if the call is on Zoom, Meet, Teams or a phone?
- Yes. It records the Mac system audio rather than integrating with a specific meeting platform, so the source does not matter. That is also why nothing appears in the participant list.
- Is there a per-meeting or per-minute limit on the free tier?
- No. Free covers unlimited local meetings, on-device transcription, the MCP server and local Apple Calendar detection. Pro at $5.00 a month or $54.00 a year adds cloud calendar sync for Google and Outlook, hosted AI models, fast cross-meeting chat, Obsidian sync and speaker identification.
- Can I point it at my own model instead?
- Summaries and chat run against a local model by default, and the hosted option is something you choose to switch on rather than the default path. If you would rather everything stayed on the machine, leave it in local mode and the app keeps working without a network connection.
- Is the interface localised?
- No. The app interface is English. The transcript and summary follow the language spoken in the meeting.
Give your coding agent your meeting history
Free for unlimited local meetings, with the MCP server included and no 30-day window on what it can read.
Download free for Mac