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mmccarthy404

calibre-mcp

by mmccarthy404

calibre-mcp

A minimal, read-only Model Context Protocol server for a local Calibre e-book library. It wraps the calibredb CLI (--for-machine JSON output), so it needs no content server and cannot modify your library — no write tools exist.

Defaults target Windows, but it runs anywhere calibredb does (macOS/Linux) — just set the two environment variables below.

Tools

Tool

Description

search_books(query, limit=20, offset=0)

Search using Calibre's search syntax (e.g. author:Erikson, tag:Fantasy, series:"Malazan"); page with offset.

list_books(limit=50, offset=0, sort_by="timestamp", ascending=False)

List/browse the library, sorted; page through it with offset.

get_book(book_id)

Full metadata for one book by its Calibre ID.

list_recent(limit=10)

Most recently added books.

count_books()

Total number of books in the library.

Related MCP server: Calibre MCP Server

Requirements

  • Calibre installed (provides calibredb).

  • uv to manage the environment.

Install

git clone https://github.com/mmccarthy404/calibre-mcp.git
cd calibre-mcp
uv sync

Configuration

Set via environment variables (Windows defaults shown; change to your paths):

Variable

Default

Notes

CALIBRE_LIBRARY_PATH

D:\Documents\Calibre Library

Path to your Calibre library folder (contains metadata.db).

CALIBREDB_PATH

C:\Program Files\Calibre2\calibredb.exe

Path to calibredb (on macOS/Linux, usually just calibredb).

Run

uv run calibre-mcp        # or: uv run python calibre_mcp.py

Register with Claude Code

claude mcp add calibre --scope user -- \
  uv run --directory "/path/to/calibre-mcp" python calibre_mcp.py

Then, in a new Claude session, ask things like "search my Calibre library for Erikson" or "what are my 5 most recently added books?".

License

MIT

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