PDF-Tools MCP Server

Instructions

Implementation Reference

• index.ts:221-254 (handler)

  Handler for the 'read_pdf' tool that validates the file path, reads the PDF file, parses it using the 'pdf-parse' library, and returns the extracted text content.

  case "read_pdf": {
    const { file_path } = args as any;
  
    if (!file_path || typeof file_path !== 'string') {
      throw new Error('file_path is required and must be a string');
    }
  
    const resolvedPath = path.resolve(file_path);
  
    const isAllowed = ALLOWED_DIRS.some(allowedDir => resolvedPath.startsWith(path.resolve(allowedDir)));
    if (!isAllowed) {
      throw new Error(`file_path must be inside allowed directories: ${ALLOWED_DIRS.join(', ')}`);
    }
  
    const data = await fs.readFile(resolvedPath);
      let pdfParse: any;
      try {
        const require = createRequire(import.meta.url);
        pdfParse = require('pdf-parse');
    } catch (e) {
      throw new Error('Dependency "pdf-parse" is not installed. Please run `npm install pdf-parse` in pdftools-mcp');
    }
  
    const parsed: any = await pdfParse(data);
  
    return {
      content: [
        {
          type: 'text',
          text: parsed.text || ''
        }
      ]
    };
  }

• index.ts:159-172 (registration)

  Registration of the 'read_pdf' tool in the tools list, including name, description, and input schema definition.

  {
    name: "read_pdf",
    description: "Read a PDF file from disk and return its text content",
    inputSchema: {
      type: "object",
      properties: {
        file_path: {
          type: "string",
          description: "Absolute or relative path to the PDF file"
        }
      },
      required: ["file_path"]
    }
  }

• index.ts:162-171 (schema)

  Input schema for the 'read_pdf' tool defining the required 'file_path' parameter.

  inputSchema: {
    type: "object",
    properties: {
      file_path: {
        type: "string",
        description: "Absolute or relative path to the PDF file"
      }
    },
    required: ["file_path"]
  }

• src/types/pdf-parse.d.ts:1-13 (helper)

  TypeScript type definitions for the 'pdf-parse' library used in the read_pdf handler.

  declare module 'pdf-parse' {
    import { Buffer } from 'buffer';
  
    export default function pdfParse(data: Buffer | Uint8Array | string): Promise<{
      numpages?: number;
      numrender?: number;
      info?: any;
      metadata?: any;
      version?: string;
      text: string;
      textAsHtml?: string;
    }>;
  }