@liaiso/file-core

Shared machinery for read-only, sandboxed, file-backed MCP servers. @liaiso/excel-mcp, @liaiso/xml-mcp and @liaiso/pdf-mcp are all built on top of it.

The source-agnostic machinery (guard, the response budget, the error envelope, the cursor codec, the stdio server) moved to @liaiso/mcp-core; this package consumes it, adds the file-specific layer, and re-exports its full surface except the output-writing tool type (ownOutput, OwnOutputToolDefinition, ToolCatalog, createMcpOutputServer).

This package is not @liaiso/core and does not depend on it in either direction. @liaiso/core is the spec's HTTP catalog reference implementation; this package is the machinery behind local file sources.

Usage

A file server names only this package (never @liaiso/mcp-core directly): it resolves paths through createSandboxRoot/resolveSourcePath, lists sources with listSources, opens and caches documents with createDocumentStore, and wraps its handlers with the guard/toToolError this package re-exports — both already bound to the root redactor, so no file server can emit an error envelope carrying an absolute path. parseServerArgv reads the single positional sandbox root from argv.

API

| Module | Exports | | ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | paths | The SandboxedPath brand, SandboxRoot, isContained, createSandboxRoot, resolveSourcePath — an ordered fail-fast chain that never discloses existence | | listing | listSources — glob matching, symlink containment, a scan limit, a count of unreadable entries | | documents | createDocumentStore — open + fstat + size gate + fingerprint + an instance-scoped LRU; parse and variantKey hooks | | cursor | fingerprint — identity from path, mtime and size; content fingerprinting comes from mcp-core | | errors | FileSourceError, CoreErrorCode, redactRoot — widens mcp-core's base with the file error codes | | formats | FormatRegistry — extension-to-format mapping, unsupported_extension | | tools | guard and toToolError wrappers — bind mcp-core's root redactor | | cli | parseServerArgv — pure argv parsing | | vocabulary | Vocabulary<TToolName> — adds rootLabel, readableLabel, tooLargeRecovery to mcp-core's base |

Rules

• No format-specific vocabulary. A string literal such as "workbook", "sheet", "spreadsheet" or "excel" inside this package is a defect; user-facing names arrive through the injected Vocabulary.
• Error instances come from the injected ErrorFactory. The package never calls new FileSourceError(...), which keeps a consumer's own error class and instanceof checks intact.
• zod and @modelcontextprotocol/sdk are peer dependencies. Two resolved copies would break z.infer type identity, and the SDK's schema introspection does an instanceof check.
• Root redaction is bound by guard, not at call sites. redactRoot plugs into mcp-core's ErrorContext.redact seam here, so no file server can produce an error envelope carrying an absolute path.
• The SandboxedPath brand is declared only here, and Fingerprint only in mcp-core. A second unique symbol declaration is not the same brand.

What stays here

cli.ts (parseServerArgv) and fingerprint(realPath, mtimeMs, size) stay in this package rather than in mcp-core: the single positional root argument and an identity built from file metadata are file concepts. A database server takes its connection from the environment, because a connection secret must never be in argv. The generic fingerprintFromDigest and contentFingerprint are in mcp-core.

Development

pnpm turbo run build check-types lint --filter=@liaiso/file-core
pnpm turbo run test --filter=@liaiso/file-core

Always build through Turbo, never pnpm --filter @liaiso/file-core run build on its own — downstream consumers such as excel-mcp resolve this package through exports.default → ./dist/index.js, so a bare filter can leave them testing against a stale dist.