NotebookLM MCP Login#

Authenticate with Google and save cookies for the notebooklm-mcp CLI/MCP server.

Why this skill exists#

The built-in nlm login command sometimes fails to launch Chromium via subprocess.Popen in non-standard environments. This skill provides a tested workaround that:

1. Manually launches Chromium with --remote-debugging-port=9222
2. Waits for the user to complete Google login in the browser
3. Extracts cookies via CDP ( extract_cookies_via_existing_cdp)
4. Saves them to ~/.notebooklm-mcp-cli/profiles/default/ via AuthManager.save_profile()

Steps#

1. Verify prerequisites#

bash

which chromium-browser && which uv

If missing, install Chromium ( apt install chromium-browser) and uv ( curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh).

2. Run the login script#

bash

DISPLAY=:0 ~/.local/share/uv/tools/notebooklm-mcp-cli/bin/python3 {baseDir}/scripts/login.py

• A Chromium window opens on the host display.
• The user logs in to their Google account.
• The script waits up to 300s, then extracts and saves cookies automatically.

3. Verify#

bash

uv tool run --from notebooklm-mcp-cli nlm login --check

Expected output: ✓ Authentication valid! with email and notebook count.

Storage#

• Cookies: ~/.notebooklm-mcp-cli/profiles/default/cookies.json
• Metadata: ~/.notebooklm-mcp-cli/profiles/default/metadata.json

Troubleshooting#

ProblemFixCannot connect to browser on port 9222Kill stale Chrome: pkill -f remote-debugging-port=9222``Profile not found: defaultRe-run the login scriptDISPLAY not setExport DISPLAY=:0 before running