pdf

This MCP server provides access to papers stored in a local directory by exposing PDF-related operations through the MCP protocol. The server reads PDFs from the directory you specify with the -pdfdir flag, making them discoverable via the MCP tools such as find_pdf and read_pdf. Clients can then request a list of papers in the directory, search for a specific paper by filename, and read the contents of a paper through the read_pdf tool. The server is intended to be run locally and surfaced as a server endpoint (e.g., via the SSE URL configured in the cursor settings) for use by MCP-capable clients.

Prerequisites:

• Go toolchain installed (required to build the binary if you are compiling from source).
• Access to the source repository or a prebuilt pdf-mcp-server binary.

Installation steps:

1. Build from source (if you have the Go source): go build -o pdf-mcp-server main.go

2. Move the binary to a directory in your PATH, or add its location to PATH:

   • For example: mv pdf-mcp-server /usr/local/bin/ export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin source ~/.bash_profile # or source ~/.zshrc depending on your shell

3. Run the server with the required PDF directory: pdf-mcp-server -pdfdir=/path/to/your/pdf/directory

4. (Optional) Configure cursor to point to the server’s SSE endpoint as needed by your MCP client: { "mcpServers": { "pdf-mcp-server": { "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8080/sse" } } }

Tips:

• Ensure the -pdfdir path is accessible by the user running the server and contains PDFs for discovery.
• If the server cannot access the directory due to permissions, adjust permissions or run with appropriate user rights.
• The MCP cursor settings example shows using an SSE endpoint; adjust the URL if your deployment uses a different port or transport.
• Typical issues involve the server not starting due to missing -pdfdir or misconfigured PATH; verify the binary is executable and the path provided to -pdfdir exists.
• The server exposes tools like find_pdf to list papers and read_pdf to read a selected paper; use these tools in your MCP client workflows to search and access PDFs.