Answers with links, writes after approval
Ask:
Find our onboarding checklist and tell me what is left for week one. Give me the link. Then add a row to the Roadmap table: Public changelog page, status Planned.
ChatGPT reads the page and answers with its link. For the row it asks you to confirm the write, then the row appears in the table and in Git history.
Connect
What you need
- A Folio instance reachable over HTTPS from the public internet. For private networks OpenAI offers a Secure MCP Tunnel.
- PUBLIC_URL set to that address on the Folio side.
- A ChatGPT workspace that allows custom MCP servers. OpenAI says workspace permissions apply. We could not confirm from its documents which personal plans include the feature, so check the Plugins page in your own account.
- A Folio account, from an administrator's invitation.
Steps
Step 1: Check that your Folio answers like an OAuth-protected server: a 401 with a WWW-Authenticate header.
bashcurl -si -X POST https://your-folio.example.com/mcp \ -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{}' | head -8Step 2: In ChatGPT open Plugins, click the plus and choose the custom MCP server option. The label reads Create custom MCP server or Add custom MCP server, depending on the version. Enter a name, an optional description and the server URL.
Server URLhttps://your-folio.example.com/mcpStep 3: Set authentication to OAuth. Folio supports client ID metadata documents, the method ChatGPT uses, so you do not need a client ID or a secret.
Step 4: Accept the risk warning, then create the server as a plugin and install it. ChatGPT sends you to Folio's sign-in and consent screen. Choose read to start, or read and write if you want it to edit.
Step 5: In a chat, mention the plugin with @ and ask your question.
Try it against the demo
Add https://demo.foliowiki.online/mcp the same way, sign in as Sam, and ask: "Find the Release process page and tell me which checklist items are still open."
https://demo.foliowiki.online/mcpThe demo login is shared and the data resets every 24 hours, which also removes your connection. Pages written by other visitors are untrusted data, so do not connect an agent that has a shell or your own keys, and do not enter personal data. Requests are rate limited.
What the agent can do
Folio exposes 23 tools over MCP. Full reference.
| Reading (11) | What it does |
|---|---|
list_spaces | Spaces you can see, with your role in each |
list_tree | The page tree of a space |
search_pages | Full-text search across the pages you can open |
read_page | A page as Markdown, with its metadata |
resolve_folio_url | A Folio link to the page it points at |
get_backlinks | Pages that link to a page |
page_history | The Git commits that touched a page |
page_at_sha | A page as it was at a given commit |
folio_table_list | Data tables in a space |
folio_table_schema | A table's real columns, types and options |
folio_table_query | Table rows with filter, sort and search |
search | The same search under the name ChatGPT deep research looks for |
fetch | A page by the id that search returned, as Markdown |
| Writing (10) | What it does |
|---|---|
create_page | A new document with text, or a table with columns |
update_page | Replace the text of a page; merges with live editing |
create_board | A whiteboard from a short description of boxes and arrows |
update_board | Replace a whiteboard's scene |
board_ops | Align, distribute, move or auto-layout board elements |
folio_table_create | A table with an explicit schema |
folio_table_add_column | A new column |
folio_table_insert | New rows |
folio_table_update | Cells, by row id or by filter |
folio_table_delete | Rows, by id |
- Reading needs the read scope. Writing needs write. With read only, every tool that changes something refuses to run.
- All 23 tools carry read-only or destructive annotations, so a client can ask before it writes.
- An agent cannot manage access rights, invite people, or rename and delete spaces. Those actions exist only in the browser.
- A write reaches the page file at once. The Git commit follows after about 90 seconds of quiet, so page history can lag behind an edit.
- ChatGPT asks for confirmation before write actions by default. Folio marks its 13 reading tools as read-only, so reads should go through without a prompt. Folio exposes search and fetch, so ChatGPT deep research can use it.
Security
- You sign in to your own Folio account and choose read, or read and write, on the consent screen. The connection acts with your rights and nothing more: a page you cannot open stays invisible to it.
- Writes are saved to Git history under your name.
- Access tokens last one hour and are renewed by a refresh token that rotates on every use. Folio stores only hashes of them.
- To disconnect, open the user menu, then API tokens, then Connected apps, and remove the app. Its tokens stop working immediately. Disabling the user does the same.
- An OAuth token works on /mcp only, not on the REST API.
- Page content is data, not instructions. Folio's tool descriptions say so, but the real protection is rights. An agent that also has a shell and write access can be misled by a page someone else wrote, so give it the narrowest token that does the job.
- ChatGPT can send what it reads from Folio to OpenAI. Connect only the spaces you are happy to share with it, and use a read-only consent when you only need answers.
Limits and honest notes
- ChatGPT cannot send a static token or a custom header, so there is no token route here. It is OAuth or nothing. Codex, OpenAI's coding agent, does take a token: see the Codex page.