python-docs-mcp-server

A read-only, version-aware MCP server for Python standard library documentation, optimized for low-token, section-level retrieval.

It gives Claude, Cursor, Codex, and other MCP clients precise stdlib answers without dumping whole documentation pages into the context window, without API keys, and without depending on a hosted docs provider at query time.

Why this exists

General-purpose docs retrieval is often noisy for Python stdlib questions:

• symbol lookups like asyncio.TaskGroup need exact resolution

• answers should be version-aware (3.12 vs 3.13)

• full-page fetches waste tokens when one section is enough

• official Python docs are the source of truth, but they are not packaged for MCP out of the box

This server builds a local index from the official Python documentation and exposes a small MCP tool surface tuned for high-signal retrieval.

Why teams like this

• no API keys to provision, rotate, or justify

• official Python docs are the source of truth

• local index, so runtime retrieval does not depend on a third-party hosted API

• read-only behavior with a simple security story

• easy to explain in environments where external dependencies raise friction

What you get

• exact symbol lookup from Python objects.inv

• section-level retrieval with truncation and pagination

• local SQLite + FTS5 index with no runtime web scraping

• version-aware results across indexed Python versions

• a deliberately small, read-only MCP tool surface

Quick example

Prompt

What does asyncio.TaskGroup do in Python 3.13?

Typical flow

1. search_docs("asyncio.TaskGroup", kind="symbol", version="3.13")

2. Call get_docs(...) using the slug and anchor returned by the best hit

Result

The model gets the exact symbol match and the relevant documentation section instead of a full-page dump.

30-second demo

Ask your MCP client:

In Python 3.13, how should I use asyncio.TaskGroup and what changed from older asyncio patterns?

The agent should use search_docs for the exact symbol, then get_docs for the matching section. Instead of generic web results or an entire docs page, it gets the official stdlib text for the requested Python version, trimmed to the useful section.

Local source smoke test until the PyPI package is published:

uvx --from git+https://github.com/ayhammouda/python-docs-mcp-server.git python-docs-mcp-server --version

Install

Before PyPI publishing (install from GitHub source)

Until the first PyPI release is published, run from GitHub:

uvx --from git+https://github.com/ayhammouda/python-docs-mcp-server.git python-docs-mcp-server --version

After PyPI publishing

Run directly with uvx:

uvx python-docs-mcp-server --version

Or install it persistently:

pipx install python-docs-mcp-server

If uv is installed but the uv command is not on your PATH, reopen your shell or use python -m uv ... as a fallback for local contributor commands.

First run

Build the local documentation index:

uvx --from git+https://github.com/ayhammouda/python-docs-mcp-server.git python-docs-mcp-server build-index --versions 3.10,3.11,3.12,3.13,3.14

After PyPI publishing, uvx python-docs-mcp-server build-index ... is enough.

After PyPI publishing

uvx python-docs-mcp-server build-index --versions 3.10,3.11,3.12,3.13,3.14

If you installed the package persistently, you can drop the uvx prefix:

python-docs-mcp-server build-index --versions 3.10,3.11,3.12,3.13,3.14

This downloads Python's objects.inv files, clones CPython docs sources, runs sphinx-build -b json, and writes an SQLite index to your local cache. Expect the first build to take several minutes.

Configure your MCP client

Claude Desktop

Add this to your Claude Desktop configuration file:

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

Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows: %APPDATA%\\Claude\\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "python-docs": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--from",
        "git+https://github.com/ayhammouda/python-docs-mcp-server.git",
        "python-docs-mcp-server"
      ]
    }
  }
}

After PyPI publishing, use:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "python-docs": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["python-docs-mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop after editing the config file.

Cursor

Add this to your Cursor MCP settings (.cursor/mcp.json in your project or global settings):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "python-docs": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--from",
        "git+https://github.com/ayhammouda/python-docs-mcp-server.git",
        "python-docs-mcp-server"
      ]
    }
  }
}

After PyPI publishing, use:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "python-docs": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["python-docs-mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

Codex

Add this to .codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.python-docs]
command = "uvx"
args = ["--from", "git+https://github.com/ayhammouda/python-docs-mcp-server.git", "python-docs-mcp-server"]

After PyPI publishing, use:

[mcp_servers.python-docs]
command = "uvx"
args = ["python-docs-mcp-server"]

How quality is verified

The repo makes quality visible with reproducible checks instead of relying on marketing claims.

• CI runs ruff, pyright, and pytest on macOS and Linux for Python 3.12 and 3.13

• subprocess-based stdio hygiene and smoke tests protect the MCP protocol pipe

• packaging tests verify the wheel contents and CLI entry points

• curated retrieval regression tests cover exact symbol hits, version behavior, missing symbols, truncation, and local-version defaults

• manual MCP QA is documented in .github/INTEGRATION-TEST.md, with MCP Inspector as the fast-feedback loop and Claude/Cursor as real-client checks

Contributor commands and validation steps live in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Tools

The server currently exposes five MCP tools:

Why not Context7 or generic docs retrieval?

Use this server when you want precise local Python docs retrieval rather than broad web search:

• official Python docs, not scraped mirrors or mixed-source summaries

• exact symbol resolution from objects.inv

• Python-version-aware results across 3.10 through 3.14

• token-efficient section retrieval instead of full-page dumps

• package-declared PyPI metadata lookup via lookup_package_docs for documentation, homepage, and source URLs

• local, read-only runtime behavior with no API keys

Use Context7 or a generic docs fetcher when you need broader third-party library coverage, arbitrary web pages, or cross-framework research. This server is not a universal docs search engine. It is a precise stdlib retrieval tool for AI coding agents.

Retrieved docs cache

get_docs responses are cached across MCP client/server restarts in the platform cache directory:

<platform cache dir>/mcp-python-docs/retrieved-docs-cache.sqlite3

The cache stores completed get_docs results, including page/section content, for the resolved Python docs version plus request identity (slug, optional anchor, max_chars, and start_index). Cache misses fall back to the normal local index retrieval path and then write the retrieved result.

Cache entries are also scoped to a fingerprint of the local index.db file (path, size, and modification timestamp). If you rebuild or replace the local docs index, older entries are ignored automatically instead of being returned for the new index generation. Deleting retrieved-docs-cache.sqlite3 is safe; it only removes cached retrieval results, not the docs index.

PyPI package docs lookup

lookup_package_docs queries the official PyPI JSON API documented at https://docs.pypi.org/api/json/ (GET /pypi/<project>/json) and returns only sources declared in that package's PyPI metadata: the PyPI project URL, docs_url, home_page, and allowlisted project_urls labels such as Documentation, Homepage, Source, and Repository.

The tool makes the trust boundary explicit with trust_boundary="pypi-declared-metadata". It does not crawl pages, perform web search, or silently fall back to unofficial community mirrors.

Diagnostics

Before PyPI publishing, run doctor from the GitHub source package:

uvx --from git+https://github.com/ayhammouda/python-docs-mcp-server.git python-docs-mcp-server doctor

After PyPI publishing:

Check the local environment:

uvx python-docs-mcp-server doctor

This checks the runtime Python version, SQLite FTS5, cache/index paths, disk space, and whether the current interpreter has the venv/ensurepip support needed by build-index.

Before PyPI publishing, validate an existing index from the GitHub source package:

uvx --from git+https://github.com/ayhammouda/python-docs-mcp-server.git python-docs-mcp-server validate-corpus

After PyPI publishing:

Validate an existing index:

uvx python-docs-mcp-server validate-corpus

Troubleshooting

FTS5 unavailable

If you see an error about SQLite FTS5 not being available:

Linux x86-64

Linux x86-64 users can install the optional bundled SQLite package:

pip install 'python-docs-mcp-server[pysqlite3]'

macOS / Windows / Linux ARM

Install Python from python.org or use:

uv python install

Missing pythonX.Y-venv on Debian/Ubuntu

If doctor reports that build venv support is unavailable, install the venv package for the same Python minor version that runs the server:

sudo apt install python3.12-venv

Adjust 3.12 to match the version shown by doctor. Without this package, build-index cannot create the disposable Sphinx environment it uses to build JSON documentation content.

Migrating from the pre-rename CLI

Earlier development snapshots of this project used the PyPI name mcp-server-python-docs. The published PyPI project is python-docs-mcp-server. If your MCP client config still references the old name via uvx, you will see a Package not found error, because uvx resolves projects by PyPI name.

Update your config's args from:

"args": ["mcp-server-python-docs"]

to:

"args": ["python-docs-mcp-server"]

The wheel still installs a legacy mcp-server-python-docs console script for users who already have the package installed and invoke the binary by name on $PATH. That script is an alias and will be removed in a future release.

uvx cache stale

If uvx python-docs-mcp-server runs an old version:

uvx --reinstall python-docs-mcp-server

Or clear the uv cache:

uv cache clean python-docs-mcp-server

Claude Desktop on Windows (MSIX)

The MSIX-packaged version of Claude Desktop on Windows may have restricted PATH access. If uvx is not found, specify the full path in your config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "python-docs": {
      "command": "C:\\Users\\YOU\\.local\\bin\\uvx.exe",
      "args": [
        "--from",
        "git+https://github.com/ayhammouda/python-docs-mcp-server.git",
        "python-docs-mcp-server"
      ]
    }
  }
}

After PyPI publishing, use:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "python-docs": {
      "command": "C:\\Users\\YOU\\.local\\bin\\uvx.exe",
      "args": ["python-docs-mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

Replace YOU with your Windows username. Find the exact path with where uvx.

Restart after rebuild

After running build-index, restart your MCP client so it picks up the new database file. The server opens the index read-only at startup and does not hot-reload an updated database.

On Windows, close the MCP client before rebuilding if the index file is locked.

Contributor workflow

For contributor setup and verification:

• CONTRIBUTING.md

• .github/INTEGRATION-TEST.md

• .github/RELEASE.md

Support

Tested on macOS and Linux. Windows should work, but it is not verified on every release.

The server requires Python 3.12+ to run. Its generated documentation corpus covers Python documentation versions 3.10 through 3.14.

License

MIT