April 14 + April 16 + April 17 + April 20, 2026

Notion latest updates April 2026, and the desktop config file that shipped the same week

Workers for Agents, voice input, AI Meeting Notes, Mail and Calendar in the agent, Opus 4.7 swapped in. Every April release has the same shape: extend what the Notion agent can reach inside Notion. This page covers the full list, the pattern, and one file path that shipped on April 20 and answers the question every other recap leaves on the table.

M
Matthew Diakonov
13 min read
4.9from Shipping on macOS since early 2026
Real macOS accessibility, not screenshots
Custom MCP servers via ~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json (v2.4.0, Apr 20)
Works with any app on your Mac, not just the browser
Same JSON shape as Claude Code's mcpServers field

What Notion shipped in April 2026

Three dated releases on the customer side, plus one model swap. The bulk of the work landed on April 14 as Notion 3.4 part 2, with Workers for Agents headlining a list that also includes voice input on the desktop app, AI Meeting Notes triggered from Cmd+K with custom instruction templates, shareable read-only AI chat links, the Views API with eight endpoints, smart filters, heading 4 blocks in the API, tab block support in the API, writable wiki verification, and Notion Academy expanding into Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, French, and German. Two days later, on April 16, Opus 4.7 was made available as a model in Notion with Anthropic's claim of 3x fewer tool errors. On April 17, Mail and Calendar were added to the Custom Agent settings page, joining Slack which had landed earlier in the month. The Custom Agents free trial was extended through May 3, 2026.

Most April recaps also fold in the 3.4 part 1 features that shipped on March 26 (dashboard view, sidebar revamp into four tabs, tabs block, page archive, presentation mode at Cmd+Opt+P), because adoption peaked through April. They are real and worth using. They are also pure Notion-internal features and do not change the question this page is interested in.

The April releases, dated

Workers for Agents

Sandboxed code execution inside Notion. 30s wall clock, 128 MB memory, domain allowlist. Enterprise plan only.

Voice input for AI

Speak prompts on the desktop app. Transcription happens in Notion's pipeline.

AI Meeting Notes

Cmd+K to capture, with custom instruction templates per workspace.

Shareable AI chats

Generate a read-only public link to any AI conversation.

Views API, 8 endpoints

Programmatic access to filters, sorts, and visible properties on a database view.

Smart filters

Saved filter sets that update with the data, surfaced in the new dashboard view.

Heading 4 + tab blocks in API

Block types that existed in the editor are now creatable through the API.

Mail + Calendar in agent

Cloud API integrations against Gmail and Microsoft Graph. Action lives on Notion's side.

Opus 4.7 swap

April 16, model upgrade in Notion. Anthropic claims 3x fewer tool errors and lower token use.

The pattern across every April update

Lay all twelve features out next to each other and one shape comes through. Every customer-facing change extends what the Notion agent can reach inside Notion's own perimeter. Workers for Agents adds compute, but inside Notion's sandbox with a 30 second wall clock and a 128 MB memory cap. Mail, Calendar, and Slack are added to the agent, but as cloud HTTPS API integrations against Gmail, Microsoft Graph, and the Slack Web API. The n8n MCP integration adds tools, but the call originates from Notion's servers against a hosted n8n instance. The Views API exposes Notion data to outside callers, but the data is still Notion data.

None of the April 2026 updates let the Notion agent open an app on your Mac, type into a native text field, or read what is on your screen. That is not a complaint, that is a description. Notion is a SaaS workspace and its agent lives inside that workspace and the partner cloud APIs Notion has decided to support. The shape of the surface area is the shape of the company.

Notion's agent surface area, April 2026

User prompt
Database row
Meeting trigger
Notion Agent
Gmail API
Microsoft Graph
Slack Web API
Workers sandbox
n8n MCP

What shipped on the other side, the same week

On April 20, 2026, Fazm 2.4.0 was published. The headline change is one line in the changelog: Added custom MCP server support via ~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json with Settings UI to add, edit, and toggle servers. Read carefully, that line is the inverse of every Notion update on this page. Notion is expanding the allowlist of partner clouds the agent is allowed to reach. Fazm is handing the user a config file and saying: write any command in here, any MCP server you can launch from a terminal, and the agent can call it.

The shape of that file matters. Fazm's MCP config uses the exact same JSON schema as Claude Code's mcpServers field. So any MCP server you have already wired into Claude Code (filesystem, Playwright, Notion's own MCP server, Linear, GitHub, a wrapper around macOS accessibility) drops straight into Fazm with a copy and paste, no translation layer.

~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json
Apr 20, 2026

Format mirrors Claude Code's mcpServers: { name: { command, args, env, enabled } }

MCPServerManager.swift, line 5

How the file actually loads

The relevant code lives in Desktop/Sources/MCPServerManager.swift. On app launch, the manager resolves the user's home directory, appends .fazm/mcp-servers.json, decodes the file with JSONDecoder into a dictionary keyed by server name, sorts alphabetically, and publishes the result as an @Published array that the Settings UI binds to. The ACP bridge then merges this list with the built-in servers and reports the union back through updateActiveServers. The whole loop is small enough to fit on one screen.

Desktop/Sources/MCPServerManager.swift

One agent call, end to end

YouFazm barMCP servermacOS apptype or speak the requestspawn subprocess from mcp-servers.jsonAX or shell call against the appresult, log, or screenshotstructured tool resultanswer in the floating bar

Notion's April 2026 surface vs. Fazm's April 2026 surface

FeatureNotion 3.4 part 2 (Apr 14-17)Fazm 2.4.0 (Apr 20)
Where the agent runsNotion's serversYour Mac, under your user
How tools are addedWorkspace admin enables a partner integrationEdit ~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json or use the Settings UI
Compute limits30 second wall clock, 128 MB memory (Workers for Agents)Whatever your Mac has
Plan gate for code executionEnterprise onlySubscription tier, no separate plan wall
Reaches a Mac appNo, only allowlisted cloud APIsYes, via macOS accessibility through any MCP server
MCP supportHosted partners (n8n)Any MCP server you can launch from a terminal
Same JSON schema as Claude CodeNoYes, drop your existing mcpServers config in
0Notion 3.4 part 2 features (Apr 14)
0sWorkers for Agents wall clock
0 MBWorkers for Agents memory cap
0Fazm releases shipped in April

What this means in practice, app by app

Notion's April updates handle the cloud apps Notion has signed integrations with. Fazm's mcp-servers.json plus the macOS accessibility API handle whatever else lives on your Mac. The list below is the long tail of native apps Fazm can drive that Notion's agent cannot touch in April 2026.

Xcode
Figma
Logic Pro
Final Cut Pro
Sketch
Notion desktop
Slack
Mail
Messages
Calendar
Pages
Numbers
Keynote
QuickBooks
FileMaker
Terminal
VS Code
Cursor
Arc
Safari
Chrome

How to add an MCP server to Fazm right now

1

Update to Fazm 2.4.0 or later

The MCP config file did not exist before April 20, 2026. Earlier builds will not read the file even if you create it.

2

Open Settings, MCP Servers tab

The UI writes back to the same file you would edit by hand. Either path works, but the UI also validates the command resolves to something on your PATH.

3

Or edit ~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json directly

Add a top-level key (the server name) with command, optional args array, optional env object, optional enabled boolean (default true). Save the file and relaunch the bar.

4

Verify the server is active

The bar's tools menu lists active servers, both built-in and user. If your server crashes on launch, the ACP bridge logs to /private/tmp/fazm.log.

5

Use it from a prompt

Refer to the server by name or just describe what you want and let the agent pick. Tools surface automatically.

A live agent run that crosses both surfaces

Every Fazm release in April 2026, for context

The MCP config file did not show up out of nowhere. April 2026 was a heavy shipping month on the desktop side too. Ten releases, mostly fixing pop-out chat behavior (which itself shipped on April 3 in 2.0.1), expanding shortcuts, and adding the custom-API endpoint that paved the way for the MCP work.

VersionDateHeadline change
2.4.0Apr 20Custom MCP servers via ~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json
2.3.2Apr 16Privacy language tightened to local-first
2.2.1Apr 12Pop-out follow-up dedupe
2.2.0Apr 11Cmd+Shift+N global new-chat shortcut, custom API endpoints
2.1.3Apr 09Manage Subscription button, pop-out error display
2.1.2Apr 07ACP v0.25.0 with credit-exhaustion error handling
2.0.9Apr 05Scroll-to-bottom button in chat
2.0.7Apr 05Auto-fallback to built-in account when model is unavailable
2.0.6Apr 04Auto-accept observer cards, Smart/Fast model toggle
2.0.1Apr 03Pop-out chat windows, push-to-talk in chat

Who should care about this difference

If your work lives entirely inside Notion and the cloud services Notion now reaches (Gmail, Calendar, Slack, hosted databases), the April 2026 updates are most of what you need. The dashboard view, AI Meeting Notes, and the Mail/Calendar agent integration genuinely change what a knowledge worker can hand off without leaving the browser.

If your work touches a single application that does not have a usable public API (Xcode, Logic Pro, Final Cut, QuickBooks, FileMaker, an in-house tool, anything with a native window and no REST surface), April 2026 did not move the needle on the Notion side. It moved on the Fazm side, on April 20, in one config file. The two stories are complementary, not competing. The natural division is plan in Notion, execute in Fazm.

When the Fazm side is the right call

  • You need an agent to open and drive a native Mac app
  • You want the same MCP servers as Claude Code, no rewrite
  • You hit Workers for Agents' 30s / 128MB sandbox cap
  • You are not on Notion Enterprise but want code execution
  • You already use accessibility-based automation tools
  • Your workflow can stay entirely inside Notion's allowlist
  • You only need cloud-API integrations Notion already supports

The anchor fact, in one sentence

On April 20, 2026, Fazm 2.4.0 added a single file at ~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json that uses the exact same JSON schema as Claude Code's mcpServers field, so any MCP server you can launch from a terminal becomes a tool the desktop agent can call, including ones that drive macOS apps Notion's allowlist does not reach.

See the desktop side of April 2026 in 15 minutes

Walk through your real workflow with the team and watch Fazm pick up where Notion's allowlist stops.

Book a call

Frequently asked questions

What did Notion ship in April 2026?

Three dated releases. April 14, 2026 was Notion 3.4 part 2: Workers for Agents (Enterprise sandboxed code), voice input for AI on the desktop, AI Meeting Notes from Cmd+K with custom instructions, shareable read-only AI chat links, the Views API with eight endpoints, smart filters, heading 4 blocks, tab block support in API, writable wiki verification, and Notion Academy in six new languages. April 16, 2026 swapped Opus 4.7 in as the new model, with Anthropic's claim of 3x fewer tool errors. April 17, 2026 added Mail and Calendar to the Custom Agent settings page (Slack landed earlier in the month). The Custom Agents free trial was extended through May 3, 2026. The earlier 3.4 part 1 (March 26) brought the dashboard view, sidebar revamp, tabs block, page archive, and presentation mode (Cmd+Opt+P), which a lot of users only adopted in April so it shows up in most April recap posts.

What is the actual common pattern across Notion's April 2026 updates?

Every customer-facing change extends what the Notion agent can reach inside Notion's own perimeter. Workers for Agents adds compute, but inside Notion's sandbox with a 30 second wall clock and 128 MB memory cap. Mail, Calendar, and Slack are added to the agent, but as cloud HTTPS API integrations against Gmail/Microsoft Graph/Slack Web API, not as desktop automation. The n8n MCP integration adds tools, but the call originates from Notion's servers against a hosted n8n instance. The pattern is allowlist expansion. None of the April 2026 updates let the agent open an app on a user's Mac, type into a native text field, or read what is on the user's screen.

What did Fazm ship in April 2026 that is relevant to this?

Fazm shipped twelve releases in April 2026 (versions 2.0.1 through 2.4.0). The release that matters most for this story is 2.4.0 on April 20, which added custom MCP server support via ~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json with a Settings UI to add, edit, and toggle servers. The format mirrors Claude Code's mcpServers field, so any MCP server you already have running for Claude Code drops straight into Fazm. Earlier April releases added pop-out chat windows (2.0.1), a global Cmd+Shift+N shortcut for new chats (2.2.0), custom API endpoints for proxies (2.2.0), and dynamic AI model discovery so newly released Claude models show up without an app update (2.4.0).

How is ~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json different from Notion's MCP integration?

Two different layers. Notion's MCP support is server-side: Notion's infrastructure speaks MCP to a hosted MCP server (n8n, for example) and the call pattern travels through Notion's allowlist. Fazm's mcp-servers.json is local: the file sits in your home directory, the MCPServerManager.swift class reads it on app launch, and any command listed there spawns as a subprocess of the ACP bridge on your Mac. The implication is reach. A Notion MCP integration covers what the partner exposes through their hosted API. A local MCP server can drive anything that runs on your Mac, including a wrapper around macOS accessibility APIs that types into Xcode, clicks buttons in Logic Pro, or moves files in Finder.

Can I use both at the same time?

Yes, and the natural division is research in Notion, execution in Fazm. Notion AI's April 2026 updates make it a stronger planner: the dashboard view aggregates KPIs, AI Meeting Notes captures intent from a call, the Views API lets external services read structured Notion data. Fazm runs on the same machine you actually do work on, so it picks up where Notion's allowlist ends. A common loop: an agent reads a brief in Notion via the Views API, asks Fazm to open Xcode and run a build, watches the AX log for completion, captures a screenshot of the result, and writes the outcome back to Notion through Notion's own API.

What format does ~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json use?

The exact same shape as Claude Code's mcpServers field. A top-level object keyed by server name, with command (string), args (array of strings, optional), env (object of env vars, optional), and enabled (boolean, optional, defaults to true). Example: { "playwright": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@playwright/mcp@latest"], "enabled": true } }. The file is read by MCPServerManager.swift via JSONDecoder, decoded into RawServerConfig, and merged with built-in servers in the ACP bridge. The Settings UI in Fazm writes back to the same file with .prettyPrinted and .sortedKeys, so you can also edit it by hand and the app picks the changes up on next launch.

Do I need an Enterprise plan to use any of this?

Workers for Agents on Notion is Enterprise only because Notion runs the code in its own infrastructure with the liability that implies. Fazm's MCP server file runs on your own Mac under your own user account, so the gate is just the Fazm subscription, no plan tier wall on top of that. Any MCP server you can launch from a terminal can be added to ~/.fazm/mcp-servers.json and used by the agent.

What about the Notion 3.4 part 1 updates from March that everyone is including in April recaps?

The dashboard view, sidebar revamp into four tabs (pages, agent chats, meetings, notifications), the tabs block, page archive (a middle state between active and deleted), and presentation mode (Cmd+Opt+P on Mac, slides bounded by dividers) all shipped on March 26 in 3.4 part 1. They are not strictly April updates, but most adoption happened through April so the keyword 'notion latest updates april 2026' returns guides that include them. They are pure Notion-internal features and do not change the allowlist pattern described above.

Where can I see what other apps Fazm can drive on my Mac?

Anything that opts into the standard macOS accessibility tree, which is most native apps. That includes Xcode, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Figma desktop, Notion desktop, Slack desktop, Mail, Messages, Calendar, Finder, Safari, Chrome, Arc, VS Code, Cursor, QuickBooks, FileMaker, Logic Pro, and Final Cut. Apps with custom OpenGL or Qt surfaces (some CAD tools) advertise as accessible but the AX tree is sparse, and Fazm falls back to keyboard-driven workflows for those. None of these are reachable from Notion's agent integrations announced in April 2026.