read_notebook - Jupyter MCP Server

Read a notebook and return index, source content, type, execution count of each cell.

Using brief format to get a quick overview of the notebook structure and it's useful for locating specific cells for operations like delete or insert. Using detailed format to get detailed information of the notebook and it's useful for debugging and analysis.

It is recommended to use brief format with larger limit to get a overview of the notebook structure, then use detailed format with exact index and limit to get the detailed information of some specific cells.

read-only: yes

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
`notebook_name`	string	yes	—	Notebook identifier to read
`response_format`	`brief` · `detailed`	no	`"brief"`	Response format: 'brief' will return first line and lines number, 'detailed' will return full cell source
`start_index`	integer	no	`0`	Starting index for pagination (0-based)
`limit`	integer	no	`20`	Maximum number of items to return (0 means no limit)

Output

{
  "properties": {
    "result": {
      "description": "Notebook content in the requested format",
      "title": "Result",
      "type": "string"
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "result"
  ],
  "title": "read_notebookOutput",
  "type": "object"
}

Call it

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "read_notebook",
    "arguments": {
      "notebook_name": "<notebook_name>",
      "response_format": "brief",
      "start_index": 0,
      "limit": 20
    }
  }
}

result = await session.call_tool("read_notebook", arguments={"notebook_name": "<notebook_name>", "response_format": "brief", "start_index": 0, "limit": 20})

Source

Registered by the @mcp.tool decorator on read_notebook in jupyter_mcp_server/server.py.