The Riksarkivet MCP Server enables searching and browsing millions of transcribed historical documents from the Swedish National Archives through AI assistants and command-line tools.
Core Capabilities:
Full-text search with advanced query syntax including wildcards (*, ?), fuzzy matching (~), proximity searches, boolean operators (AND/OR/NOT), and term boosting. Results support pagination, configurable hits per document (default: 3), and toggleable context display for balancing coverage with detail.
Document browsing by reference code with support for single pages, ranges (e.g., "1-10"), or comma-separated lists. View full transcriptions with optional search term highlighting and configurable page limits (default: 20).
Document structure and metadata retrieval including reference codes, PIDs, institution information, dates, and IIIF manifest data without fetching full content.
Archive guide navigation with access to a complete guide index and specific sections covering topics like courts (Domstolar) and prisons (Fängelse).
Integration features including ALTO XML transcriptions for structured data, IIIF high-resolution images with zoom/crop capabilities, interactive web viewers (Bildvisning), and integration with Riksarkivet APIs (Search API, IIIF Collections, OAI-PMH, semantic search).
Deployment options as an MCP server for AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT via HTTP transport, command-line interface for local usage, and containerized deployment with development tools including MCP Inspector testing and Dagger-based CI/CD.
Typical workflow: Search using keywords → Paginate through results → Browse specific pages with highlighted terms → Access original images and metadata for citations.
Click on "Install Server".
Wait a few minutes for the server to deploy. Once ready, it will show a "Started" state.
In the chat, type @ followed by the MCP server name and your instructions, e.g., "@Riksarkivet MCP Server search for documents about witchcraft trials in Stockholm"
That's it! The server will respond to your query, and you can continue using it as needed.
Here is a step-by-step guide with screenshots.
A Model Context Protocol server and CLI for searching and browsing transcribed historical documents from the Swedish National Archives (Riksarkivet). Provides full-text search across millions of AI-transcribed pages, complete page transcriptions, handwritten text recognition, interactive document viewing, and archival research guides — all as MCP tools that any LLM client can use.
Streamable HTTP — works with ChatGPT, Claude, and any MCP-compatible client:
https://riksarkivet-ra-mcp.hf.space/mcpClaude Code:
claude mcp add --transport http ra-mcp https://riksarkivet-ra-mcp.hf.space/mcpIDE (mcp.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"ra-mcp": {
"type": "streamable-http",
"url": "https://riksarkivet-ra-mcp.hf.space/mcp"
}
}
}Claude.ai (web & desktop) — no install: it's a remote server, so add it as a custom connector by URL. Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste https://riksarkivet-ra-mcp.hf.space/mcp → Add. The ra-mcp tools then appear in new chats. (Requires a plan with custom connectors: Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise.)
ChatGPT (Pro/Business/Enterprise): Settings → Connectors (or enable Developer mode) → add a connector pointing at the same URL. See OpenAI's connector docs for the current flow.
The interactive document / PDF viewers are MCP App UIs — they render inline only in clients that support MCP UI resources (e.g. Claude). Other clients still get all the text/search/browse tools; they just won't embed the viewer.
The
.claude/skills and theplugins/ra-mcp-toolsplugin are Claude Code add-ons (/install-plugin AI-Riksarkivet/ra-mcp plugins/ra-mcp-tools). They aren't used by claude.ai or ChatGPT, which call the MCP tools directly.
Related MCP server: KB MCP Server
The ra command imports the search, browse, and TUI sub-apps unconditionally, so install the cli and tui extras to get a working CLI:
uv pip install "ra-mcp[cli,tui]"# Search transcribed documents
ra search "trolldom"
ra search "Stockholm troll*"
# Browse specific pages
ra browse "SE/RA/310187/1" --pages "7,8,52" --search-term "trolldom"
# Interactive terminal browser
ra tui "trolldom"For architecture, development setup, deployment, tool reference, CLI reference, and more:
ai-riksarkivet.github.io/ra-mcp
Unclaimed servers have limited discoverability.
If you are the server author, to access and configure the admin panel.
Federated search of books and papers, BibTeX/RIS citations, open-access retrieval and reading.
Search 14.5M Smithsonian Open Access objects, get CC0 images, find cross-collection connections.
Curated knowledge API for AI agents - skill packs, semantic search, validated patterns.
We provide all the information about MCP servers via our MCP API.
curl -X GET 'https://glama.ai/api/mcp/v1/servers/AI-Riksarkivet/ra-mcp'
If you have feedback or need assistance with the MCP directory API, please join our Discord server
