mcp-document-reader

MCP server for AI-assisted PDF reading with pagination, search, and page navigation.

Designed to let AI assistants read large documents without filling the context window from page 1 every time. The model can chunk through a book, jump to any section by keyword, and pick up exactly where it left off.

Tools

| Tool | Description | |---|---| | list_documents | List all documents in the configured directory | | get_document_info | Get page count and file size without extracting text | | read_document | Read a page range (default: 50-page chunks) | | search_document | Keyword search — returns page numbers and context snippets |

Every read_document response includes a [Pages X–Y of Z total] header and a continuation hint so the model knows exactly where to call next.

Quick start (Claude Desktop / npx)

Add to your Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "documents": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@hanna.r/mcp-document-reader", "--stdio", "--dir", "/path/to/your/docs"]
    }
  }
}

No install needed — npx pulls the package on first run.

Self-hosted (Docker / SSE)

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  mcp-document-reader:
    image: node:22-alpine
    working_dir: /app
    command: node index.js
    environment:
      DOC_DIR: /docs
      HTTP_PORT: "3000"
    volumes:
      - ./docs:/docs:ro
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"

Register the SSE endpoint in your MCP gateway:

{ "url": "http://mcp-document-reader:3000/sse" }

A GET /healthz endpoint is available for Docker healthchecks.

CLI reference

node index.js [options]

  --dir <path>    Directory to serve documents from  (default: $DOC_DIR or cwd)
  --port <n>      HTTP port for SSE mode             (default: $HTTP_PORT or 3000)
  --stdio         Use stdio transport instead of SSE

Environment variables

| Variable | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | DOC_DIR | . | Document directory | | HTTP_PORT | 3000 | SSE server port | | MCP_TRANSPORT | — | Set to stdio to use stdio transport |

Supported formats

• PDF (.pdf)

Requirements

Node.js >= 18