document-mcp

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server exposing documents.js's document-conversion, .odb, metadata, and font tooling as MCP tools, so an MCP-speaking agent can convert, inspect, and edit docx/pptx/odt/odp/ods/odg/odf/pdf/odb/xlsx/markdown documents without writing TypeScript against documents.js directly.

document-mcp adds no conversion or editing logic of its own — it is a dispatch layer over documents.js's existing conversion functions, DocumentConverter port, and .odb/PDF readers, wired up as MCP tools served over stdio. document-cli is the sibling frontend over the identical documents.js library — a terminal CLI/TUI rather than an MCP server — so the two are independent consumers of one shared implementation and can expose different subsets of it. A convert_document call's fidelity — which (source, targetFormat) pairs round-trip losslessly, which are a best-effort reconstruction, and why — is exactly what documents.js's own Fidelity section documents, table included; it is not restated here.

graph TD
    schema("document-schema.js")
    ooxml("ooxml.js")
    odf("odf.js")
    pdfcodec("pdf-codec")
    mdcodec("markdown-codec")
    documents("documents.js")
    mcp("document-mcp")
    cli("document-cli")

    schema --> ooxml
    schema --> odf
    schema --> pdfcodec
    schema --> mdcodec
    schema --> documents
    ooxml --> documents
    odf --> documents
    pdfcodec --> documents
    mdcodec --> documents
    documents --> mcp
    pdfcodec --> mcp
    documents --> cli
    odf --> cli
    pdfcodec --> cli

    click schema "https://github.com/ExaDev/document-schema.js" "document-schema.js"
    click ooxml "https://github.com/ExaDev/ooxml.js" "ooxml.js"
    click odf "https://github.com/ExaDev/odf.js" "odf.js"
    click pdfcodec "https://github.com/ExaDev/pdf-codec" "pdf-codec"
    click mdcodec "https://github.com/ExaDev/markdown-codec" "markdown-codec"
    click documents "https://github.com/ExaDev/documents.js" "documents.js"
    click mcp "https://github.com/ExaDev/document-mcp" "document-mcp"
    click cli "https://github.com/ExaDev/document-cli" "document-cli"

    style mcp fill:#f9a825,stroke:#333,stroke-width:3px

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Getting started

Requires Node.js >=20 and pnpm 11.6.0 (pinned via packageManager in package.json).

pnpm install
pnpm build         # tsdown -> dist/ (ESM + CJS + .d.ts)
pnpm typecheck     # tsc --noEmit
pnpm lint          # eslint . --max-warnings 0
pnpm test          # vitest run --project unit
pnpm test:smoke    # rebuilds dist/, then spawns dist/bin.js as a real subprocess and drives it over genuine MCP stdio

Once published, run the server directly via npx document-mcp (stdio transport, no install step needed).

Connecting from Claude Code / Claude Desktop

Add an entry to the client's MCP server configuration (claude mcp add for Claude Code, or the mcpServers block in Claude Desktop's config file):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "document-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "document-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Or, for local development against a checkout of this repository rather than the published package, point command at the built binary directly:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "document-mcp": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/document-mcp/dist/bin.js"]
    }
  }
}

Document I/O

Every tool that takes or produces document bytes goes through the same two hybrid shapes, documented once here rather than repeated per tool below.

Input (DocumentInput) is a union: either a filesystem path (the format is inferred from the file extension — docx, pptx, xlsx, odt, odp, ods, odg, odf, md/markdown, pdf), or inline bytesBase64 plus an explicit format (required, since inline bytes carry no filename to infer one from). Each ODF/OOXML template and macro-enabled variant also reads as its base format: .ott/.ots/.otp/.otg/.otf as odt/ods/odp/odg/odf, and .dotx/.potx/.xltx (templates) or .docm/.xlsm/.pptm (macro-enabled) as their OOXML base — a template is the same package with a -template mimetype, and a macro-enabled file carries a vbaProject part this library reads past without executing or re-emitting. .odb tools are the one exception: a .odb has no single DocumentFormat of its own (it is a database front end, not a document — tables, saved queries, and reports are three unrelated output shapes), so their source.path/source.bytesBase64 bytes are read directly with no format inference at all.

Output (DocumentOutput), on every tool that produces a document, is a single optional outputPath: supply it to have the tool write the result to that filesystem path (the response then reports { path, byteLength }); omit it to receive the bytes inline instead ({ bytesBase64, byteLength }, flagged large: true above 5 MB — advisory only, the bytes are never truncated or refused).

Tools

Tool	Description
convert_document	Converts a document from one supported format to another via documents.js's DocumentConverter port — docx, pptx, xlsx, odt, odp, ods, odg, odf, markdown, and pdf. Not every (source, targetFormat) pair is direct; call list_document_conversions first.
list_document_conversions	Lists every (source, target) format pair convert_document actually supports.
metadata_read	Reads a document's title/author/subject/keywords/creator/producer/created-and-modified timestamps. Works across every supported format, including xlsx and odf.
metadata_write	Patches a document's title/author/subject/keywords in place. Does not convert format — source and target format must match (or both be pdf); odf (a standalone formula document) is rejected as either, since it has no write path back out at all.
fonts	Lists every source-embedded font face a docx/pptx/odt/odp/ods/odg document carries (family, weight/style, byte length).
describe_font_file	Reads a standalone .ttf/.otf font file and reports the family/bold/italic triple it declares about itself.
docx_extras	Reads a docx's own comments, footnotes, headers, footers, and numbering definitions — data the ContentDocument pivot cannot carry, so no other tool sees it.
pdf_inspect	Parses a PDF and reports a summary (page count, per-page size and item-kind histogram, metadata, embedded image formats), or the entire parsed LayoutDocument with full: true.
odm_to_pdf	Converts a .odm (ODF master document) to PDF. A .odm never carries its chapters' content inline, so each chapter resolves via a caller-supplied chapters href-to-document map and/or a chaptersDir searched by basename.
from_package	Rebuilds real document bytes in a target format from a DocumentPackage previously serialised to JSON (e.g. by a conversion tool's own onDocument/package-dump step).
odb_tables	Lists every table an embedded .odb database declares — column names, types, and row data — across every storage tier documents.js supports (HSQLDB TEXT/CACHED/BINARY, Firebird gbak backups).
odb_forms	Lists every form an .odb database declares, with each form's own data source and field-bound controls.
odb_reports	Lists every report an .odb database declares, with each report's own data-source command, band/group structure, and rpt: formula expressions.
odb_query	Runs a bounded single-table SELECT over an embedded .odb database's extracted tables — given directly as SQL or by naming a saved query. No database engine involved; an unsupported construct is reported as a tool error naming it, never silently ignored.
odb_to_csv	Extracts exactly one named table from an embedded .odb database as CSV bytes. The table name is required whenever the database declares more than one table.
odb_to_xlsx	Extracts every table an embedded .odb database declares into one xlsx workbook, one sheet per table.
odb_render_report	Resolves one of an .odb database's own reports — its data-bound command run through the bounded SQL engine, its rpt: formulas evaluated, its bands laid out — and renders the result to docx, odt, or pdf.

References

• documents.js — the library this server exposes.
• document-cli — the sibling CLI/TUI over the same library, whose toolchain this repository's scaffold mirrors.
• Model Context Protocol — the protocol this server implements, via @modelcontextprotocol/server.

License

MIT