MCP Local File Reader

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides comprehensive file system operations with support for multiple document formats. Works with Claude Desktop and other MCP-compatible AI tools.

Features

• 📁 File System Operations: List directories, read files, get file metadata

• 🔍 Search Capabilities: Grep-like content search and file name pattern matching

• 📄 Multi-Format Support:

  • PDF text extraction

  • Excel (.xlsx, .xls) with sheet listing and per-sheet reading

  • Word documents (.docx)

  • PowerPoint presentations (.pptx)

  • CSV files

  • Text files with automatic encoding detection (Shift-JIS/UTF-8)

• 🌐 Character Encoding: Automatic detection and conversion of Shift-JIS and UTF-8

• 🔒 Security: Path validation to prevent access outside designated root directory

Installation

Using npx (Recommended)

No installation needed! Just configure Claude Desktop to use npx:

Local Installation

Configuration

Claude Desktop

Edit your Claude Desktop configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add the server configuration:

Or if installed globally:

Environment Variables

• MCP_ROOT_PATH: Root directory for file access (defaults to current working directory)

Windows Example:

macOS/Linux Example:

Note: On Windows, use double backslashes (\\) or forward slashes (/) in paths. See WINDOWS.md for detailed Windows compatibility information.

Available Tools

list_directory

List contents of a directory.

Parameters:

• path (string): Relative path from root directory. Use "." for root.

Example:

read_file

Read file content with automatic format detection.

Parameters:

• path (string): Relative path to the file.

Supported formats:

• Text files (.txt, .md, .json, .xml, etc.)

• PDF (.pdf)

• Excel (.xlsx, .xls)

• Word (.docx)

• PowerPoint (.pptx)

• CSV (.csv)

Example:

get_file_info

Get metadata about a file or directory.

Parameters:

• path (string): Relative path to the file or directory.

Example:

search_content

Search for text patterns in files. Returns a list of file paths that contain the pattern.

Parameters:

• path (string): Relative path to search in.

• pattern (string): Text pattern or regex to search for.

• max_results (number): Optional. Maximum number of files to return (default: 1000).

• file_pattern (string, optional): Filter files by name pattern.

• case_sensitive (boolean, optional): Case sensitive search. Default: false.

Example:

find_files

Find files by name pattern.

Parameters:

• path (string): Relative path to search in.

• name_pattern (string): File name pattern or regex.

• case_sensitive (boolean, optional): Case sensitive search. Default: false.

Example:

list_excel_sheets

List all sheet names in an Excel file.

Parameters:

• path (string): Relative path to the Excel file.

Example:

read_excel_sheet

Read a specific sheet from an Excel file.

Parameters:

• path (string): Relative path to the Excel file.

• sheet_name (string): Name of the sheet to read.

Example:

Development

Setup

Build

Testing Locally

Use the MCP Inspector to test the server:

Or set the root path:

Usage Examples

With Claude Desktop

After configuration, you can ask Claude:

• "List all files in the current directory"

• "Read the contents of report.pdf"

• "Search for 'error' in all log files"

• "Find all Excel files"

• "List the sheets in budget.xlsx and read the Sales sheet"

• "Read the Word document proposal.docx"

Programmatic Usage

File Format Support Details

PDF

• Extracts all text content from PDF files

• Handles multi-page documents

• Uses pdf-parse library

Excel

• Supports .xlsx and .xls formats

• List all sheet names

• Read specific sheets or all sheets

• Returns data as JSON arrays

Word

• Supports .docx format

• Extracts plain text content

• Uses mammoth library

PowerPoint

• Supports .pptx format

• Extracts text from all slides

• Returns slide-by-slide content

CSV

• Automatic delimiter detection

• Character encoding detection (Shift-JIS/UTF-8)

• Returns structured JSON data

Text Files

• Automatic character encoding detection

• Supports Shift-JIS and UTF-8

• Handles various text-based formats

Security

• Path validation prevents access outside the configured root directory

• All paths are resolved and validated before file operations

• Error handling for permission issues and invalid paths

License

MIT

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Author

yryuu

Repository

https://github.com/yryuu/mcp-localfile-all-read