The Briefcase

Let your AI Agents search, read, create and update files without cluttering your project directory. The briefcase is an MCP server that gives AI agents controlled access to files outside their working directory.

What is The Briefcase?

AI agents — such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or any MCP-compatible client — typically only see files inside their current working directory. The Briefcase solves this by acting as a secure file courier: it exposes a curated set of directories to agents through a structured API, without ever revealing the underlying file origins.

You configure which directories to share. The Briefcase assigns each file a stable ID (a GUID). Agents work entirely through those IDs — they never see real paths, cannot traverse the directory tree, and cannot access anything outside what you explicitly shared.

Agents are able to search, read, create, and update the files made available through the Briefcase.

Video Demo

How It Works

  Your file system          The Briefcase MCP Server          AI Agent
  ──────────────           ───────────────────────────       ─────────
  C:\docs\notes.txt  ───►  briefcase://file/{guid}  ───►   list_files
  C:\docs\report.md  ───►  briefcase://file/{guid}  ───►   read_file
  D:\shared\data.csv ───►  briefcase://file/{guid}  ───►   (notifications)
                           briefcase://file/{guid}  ◄───   create_file / update_file

1. You tell The Briefcase which directories to watch via the BRIEFCASE_PATHS environment variable.
2. On startup, it scans those directories recursively and assigns each file a stable GUID.
3. The GUID-to-path mapping is saved to registry.json so IDs survive server restarts — agents can hold onto a file's ID indefinitely.
4. Agents call list_files to discover what's available and read_file to retrieve content.
5. When files change on disk, The Briefcase sends MCP notifications so agents can react in real time.

Status

Version 1.3 — MVP using stdio and Local file system only.

Setup

• Windows
• macOS

Available Tools

See Tools Reference for full parameter and return-value details.

File Tools

• list_files — discover all files known to The Briefcase; supports filtering by project, archive state, and sort order
• read_file — retrieve a file's content by its GUID
• create_file — write a new file into The Briefcase
• update_file — replace the full content of an existing file
• search_files — search files by name, content, or both; supports archive filtering
• archive_file — soft-hide a file from listings and searches; file remains readable by ID
• unarchive_file — restore an archived file to active status

Project Tools

• create_project — create a named group for organizing files
• list_projects — list all projects with file counts
• get_project — get a project's metadata and its file list
• add_file_to_project — associate a file with a project
• remove_file_from_project — remove a file from a project
• update_project — rename or re-describe a project
• delete_project — delete a project (files remain in The Briefcase)
• reindex_files — rebuild the file registry and search cache

File Change Notifications

The Briefcase watches configured directories in real time and sends standard MCP resource notifications when files are created, deleted, renamed, or modified. See Tools Reference for details.

Web Interface

The Briefcase also runs a local-only web UI (bound to 127.0.0.1, never reachable off-box) alongside the MCP server, letting a human browse the same files agents see. Open http://127.0.0.1:5289 (or your configured BRIEFCASE_WEB_PORT) to list files, view rendered Markdown, assign files to projects, and move or delete files. Move and delete are only available through the web UI — they are not exposed to agents, and delete sends files to the OS Recycle Bin/Trash rather than deleting them permanently.

The web UI's static assets require a published build (dotnet publish) — see Setup. Running via dotnet run or a raw dotnet build output serves the page but leaves it non-interactive.

Roadmap

• [x] Search files by name and content
• [x] Create file
• [x] Update file content
• [x] Projects — group files and filter by project
• [x] Archive — soft-hide files from listings and searches
• [x] Web interface — list, view, move, and delete files from a browser
• [ ] Plug in architecture for custom extensions
• [ ] Cloud storage backends (e.g. S3, OneDrive, Google Drive)
• [ ] HTTP with Server-Sent Events

License

Copyright 2026 Matthew Raffel. Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

File Version

1.3.1