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Outline

COLLAB
Velocity2.5

Outline gave AI assistants write access to the wiki, then spent months on the human side.

knowledge-basemcpagent-write-accessdocument-permissionssubscriptions
Current state
The April MCP expansion is the structural change in this window: assistants can patch documents, move and delete documents and collections, work with attachments, and create and resolve inline comments. Everything since has been human-facing and smaller — request-access flows for documents members cannot open, email subscriptions to publicly shared documents with change summaries, task list and checkbox handling in the editor, and profile cards on avatar hover.
Where it's heading
Two audiences are being served in sequence. The MCP work moved assistants from reading the knowledge base to editing it, including the collection structure itself. The releases after it close ordinary gaps in how people find, follow and get into documents — which is what a wiki needs before more of its edits arrive from automation. Release cadence is roughly monthly with entries that describe outcomes rather than changelogs.
Prediction
Expect the human-facing polish to continue at its current pace, with any next structural move likely extending the MCP surface further into permissions and collection management, since that is where the existing tools stop.

Recent moves

  1. 11d ago

    Profile cards on hover

    Hovering an avatar anywhere in Outline surfaces a profile card, so identity context arrives without navigating away. Small, and characteristic of the human-facing work that has filled the months since the MCP expansion.

    View source ↗
  2. 1mo ago

    Desktop app improvements

    Two unnamed desktop app improvements. The entry does not say what changed, which makes it the least informative release in the window.

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  3. 2mo ago

    Task list improvements

    Task lists and checkboxes in the editor get a round of interaction fixes. Editor mechanics are the surface users touch most, so this is worth more than its brief description suggests.

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  4. 2mo ago

    Request access to documents

    Following a link you cannot open now offers a request-access option that notifies the people who can approve it, replacing a dead end with a workflow. A necessary piece of plumbing for a wiki where permissions are granular.

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  5. 3mo ago

    Public document subscriptions

    Readers can subscribe by email to publicly shared documents and receive a summary of what changed. It extends Outline past internal teams toward documents with an outside audience that has no account.

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  6. 3mo ago

    MCP support expands to editing documents, collections and comments

    ⚡ SPARK

    The MCP surface goes from read to write: assistants can patch documents, move and delete documents and collections, handle attachments, and create and resolve inline comments. It changes what an assistant connected to Outline can be trusted to do, and every human-facing release since has been closing gaps around that.

    View source ↗