Developer & Team Workflows with Notion + Continue CLI

Use Continue CLI with Notion to generate docs, manage tasks, and automate project workflows – all through natural-language prompts.

What You'll Build

A workflow that lets you query, update, and create Notion pages or database entries from natural-language prompts. Generate PRDs, sprint tasks, meeting notes, or status reports automatically – perfect for individual developers and cross-functional teams.

What You’ll Learn

This guide teaches you to:

• Use natural language to connect to the Notion API directly with Continue CLI for powerful automation
• Configure Notion API access with proper permissions and security
• Run prompts in both TUI (interactive) and headless modes
• Create automated workflows that generate docs, manage tasks, and sync data

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:

• Continue CLI installed
• A Notion workspace with Editor (or higher) access
• Node.js 18+ installed locally
• Continue account

Agent usage requires credits – create a Continue API key at continue.dev/settings/api-keys and store it as a secret.

1. Install Continue CLI

   macOS / Linux

   curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/continuedev/continue/main/extensions/cli/scripts/install.sh | bash
   

   Windows

   irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/continuedev/continue/main/extensions/cli/scripts/install.ps1 | iex
   

   npm (cross-platform)

   If you already have Node.js 20+:

   npm i -g @continuedev/cli
   

   Verify installation:

   cn --version
   
2. Create Notion Integration & Get API Key

   1. Go to Notion Integrations
   2. Click + New integration → give it a name (e.g. “Continue Integration”)
   3. Select your workspace
   4. Under Content Capabilities, enable:
      • ✅ Read content
      • ✅ Update content
      • ✅ Insert content
   5. Under Comment Capabilities, enable:
      • ✅ Read comments
      • ✅ Insert comments
   6. Under User Capabilities, select:
      • ✅ Read user information including email addresses
   7. Click Submit and copy the Internal Integration Secret (starts with secret_)

   This token is your NOTION_API_KEY. Keep it safe – you won’t be able to view it again.

   8. In Notion, open each database or top-level page you want accessible → Share → Invite your new integration → Full access.
3. Configure API Access

   Set your Notion API key as an environment variable in your terminal:

   export NOTION_API_KEY="secret_xxx"
   

   Running this command sets your API key for the current terminal session only.
   When you close the terminal, the variable won’t persist. To test your API key, run the curl command below in the same session.

   curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $NOTION_API_KEY" \
       -H "Notion-Version: 2022-06-28" \
       https://api.notion.com/v1/databases
   
4. Add Workspace Keys to Terminal Session

   Depending on what you want cn to accomplish, you’ll need to add your Notion workspace keys to the terminal session. The workspace key is your Notion database ID. Run the following command:

   export NOTION_DATABASE_ID="your_database_id"
   

   You can find your database ID by:

   1. Opening your Notion changelog database
   2. Looking at the URL - it will be something like: https://www.notion.so/your-workspace/DATABASE_ID?v=…
   3. The DATABASE_ID is the long string of characters between the last / and the ?

Running Continue CLI with Notion API

🚀 Choose Your Interface

Continue CLI offers two powerful modes for Notion automation: TUI mode for interactive workflows and Headless mode for automated scripts.

🖥️ TUI Mode (Interactive)

1. Launch Interactive Mode

   Navigate to your project directory and run:

   cn 
   
2. Run Your First Prompt

   In the TUI interface, enter:

   1. Fetch my Notion databases using the Notion API key
   and Database ID stored in this terminal session.
   2. Look at the last week of Merged GitHub PRs, and create
   a changelog entry in Notion summarizing the features and breaking changes.
   

   TUI mode lets you review and approve each action before execution, perfect for learning and debugging.

🤖 Headless Mode (Automated)

1. Run Automated Commands

   Execute prompts directly from the command line:

   cn -p --auto "
   1. Fetch my Notion databases using the Notion API key
   and Database ID stored in this terminal session.
   2. Analyze all merged GitHub PRs from the past week.
   3. Extract feature descriptions and breaking changes.
   4. Create a technical changelog in Notion with PR links."
   

   Flags explained:

   • -p: Run without TUI interface
   • --auto: Execute without manual approval

   Always test prompts in TUI mode first before running them with --auto in production.

API Connection Notes

• Environment variable NOTION_API_KEY must be set before running Continue CLI
• Continue automatically uses the API key to authenticate with Notion
• No need for manual curl commands - just reference “the API key stored in this session”
• For complex workflows, Continue maintains the API connection throughout
• Consider creating aliases or scripts for frequently used prompts

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Quick Start Example

Working example that demonstrates the power of Continue with Notion API:

📊 Weekly Sprint Summary

This exact command has been tested and works:

# Weekly Sprint Summary
cn -p --auto "
1. Fetch Notion Sprint database
2. Analyze completed tasks vs planned
3. Generate sprint retrospective page
4. Add velocity metrics and burndown chart"

What this does:

1. Connects to your Notion workspace using the API key
2. Analyzes your sprint data
3. Calculates completion metrics
4. Creates a comprehensive retrospective with visualizations

Example Prompts & Workflows

With the Notion API configured, you can use natural language prompts to automate your workspace. Here are examples for both TUI and headless modes:

API Documentation

TUI Mode:

cn "
1. Fetch my Notion databases using the API key and secrets stored in this session
2. Generate API documentation for all endpoints 
in src/api/routes with request/response schemas
3. Create a page in Technical Docs database
"

Headless Mode:

cn -p --auto "Fetch my Notion databases using the API key and secrets stored in this session. Generate API docs 
for src/api/routes and save to Notion in Technical Docs database"

Sprint Planning from Code

Headless Mode (Automated):

cn -p --auto "
1. Fetch my Notion databases using the API key stored in this session
2. Scan codebase for TODO and FIXME comments
3. Create tasks in my Notion Engineering Backlog database
4. Include file paths and complexity estimates"

Changelog from PRs

    cn -p --auto "
    1. Fetch my Notion databases using the API key stored in this session
    2. Analyze all merged GitHub PRs from past month
    3. In my Notion Launch Database, review the Launch Template.
    4. Create an October Launch doc in Notion with a week of launches and materials based on the Launch documents based on the PR analysis and launch documents."

Daily Standup Automation

cn -p --auto "
1. Fetch my Tasks database from Notion using the API key
2. Find tasks completed yesterday
3. Find tasks in progress
4. Create standup note with: completed, 
   in-progress, and blockers sections"

Advanced Workflows

Notion + GitHub

cn -p --auto "
1. Connect to Notion using the API key in this session
2. Get merged PRs from last 7 days using GitHub
3. Extract feature descriptions and changes
4. Create formatted changelog in Notion
5. Add links back to GitHub PRs"

Requires GitHub repository access. Make sure your GitHub CLI is authenticated with gh auth login.

Test Coverage Report

cn -p --auto "
1. Connect to Notion using the API key in this session
2. Run test coverage report (npm test -- --coverage)
3. Parse coverage metrics
4. Update Test Metrics database in Notion
5. Flag files with coverage below 80%"

Blog Post Review

cn "
1. Connect to Notion using the API key in this session
2. In my Blog Posts Database, find drafts tagged 'Review'
3. Review all blog posts for grammar and clarity and suggest improvements through comments.

Weekly Report Generation

cn -p --auto "
1. Connect to Notion databases using API key
2. Aggregate completed tasks from the week
3. Calculate velocity and burndown metrics
4. Generate weekly report with charts
5. Save the report to Notion"

Security Best Practices

Protect Your API Keys:

• Never commit NOTION_API_KEY to version control
• Use environment variables or secure secret managers
• Rotate API keys every 90 days
• Grant integration access only to required databases/pages
• Monitor API usage through Notion’s integration dashboard
• Use .env files with .gitignore for local development

Next Steps

• Create a GitHub Actions workflow to automate changelog generation on releases
• Set up database templates in Notion for consistent formatting
• Explore batch operations to update multiple pages efficiently
• Implement error handling for API rate limits and network issues

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Troubleshooting

Common Issues and Solutions

API Key Not Found:

• Ensure NOTION_API_KEY is exported in your current shell session
• Check for typos in the environment variable name
• Verify the key starts with secret_

Database Access Denied:

• Share the specific database with your integration in Notion
• Ensure the integration has the correct permissions (Read, Write, Insert)

Connection Issues:

• Verify Continue CLI has internet access
• Check network connectivity to api.notion.com
• Ensure your Notion workspace allows API access

Rate Limiting:

• Notion API has rate limits (3 requests per second)
• Implement exponential backoff for automated scripts
• Consider batching operations when possible