Gallica/BnF MCP Server

Instructions

Implementation Reference

• src/tools/gallicaSearch.ts:68-107 (handler)

  Main tool definition for search_by_author. Contains the input schema (lines 72-96) and handler function (lines 97-105) that parses arguments and calls the SearchAPI.searchByAuthor method.

  export function createSearchByAuthorTool(searchApi: SearchAPI) {
    return {
      name: 'search_by_author',
      description: 'Search for documents in the Gallica digital library by author.',
      inputSchema: {
        type: 'object',
        properties: {
          author: {
            type: 'string',
            description: 'The author name to search for',
          },
          exact_match: {
            type: 'boolean',
            description: 'If true, search for the exact author name; otherwise, search for author containing the words',
            default: false,
          },
          max_results: {
            type: 'number',
            description: 'Maximum number of results to return (1-50)',
            default: config.defaultMaxRecords,
          },
          start_record: {
            type: 'number',
            description: 'Starting record for pagination',
            default: config.defaultStartRecord,
          },
        },
        required: ['author'],
      },
      handler: async (args: unknown) => {
        const parsed = exactMatchSchema.extend({ author: z.string() }).parse(args);
        return await searchApi.searchByAuthor(
          parsed.author,
          parsed.exact_match ?? false,
          parsed.max_results ?? config.defaultMaxRecords,
          parsed.start_record ?? config.defaultStartRecord
        );
      },
    };
  }

• src/gallica/search.ts:190-198 (handler)

  API implementation of searchByAuthor method. Constructs CQL query using dc.creator field and calls the core search method. Handles both exact match and partial match modes.

  searchByAuthor(
    author: string,
    exactMatch: boolean = false,
    maxResults: number = config.defaultMaxRecords,
    startRecord: number = config.defaultStartRecord
  ): Promise<SearchResult> {
    const query = exactMatch ? `dc.creator all "${author}"` : `dc.creator all ${author}`;
    return this.search(query, startRecord, maxResults);
  }

• src/mcpServer.ts:75-82 (registration)

  Tool registration in MCP server. Creates the searchByAuthor tool instance using createSearchByAuthorTool factory function and adds it to the tools array for registration.

  // Register search tools (7 tools matching Python)
  const searchByTitle = createSearchByTitleTool(searchApi);
  const searchByAuthor = createSearchByAuthorTool(searchApi);
  const searchBySubject = createSearchBySubjectTool(searchApi);
  const searchByDate = createSearchByDateTool(searchApi);
  const searchByDocumentType = createSearchByDocumentTypeTool(searchApi);
  const advancedSearch = createAdvancedSearchTool(searchApi);
  const naturalLanguageSearch = createNaturalLanguageSearchTool(searchApi);

• src/tools/gallicaSearch.ts:17-19 (schema)

  Zod validation schema for exact match search parameters. Used to validate and parse input arguments for search_by_author tool handler.

  const exactMatchSchema = searchParamsSchema.extend({
    exact_match: z.boolean().optional(),
  });

• src/gallica/types.ts:45-50 (schema)

  Type definition for SearchResult returned by searchByAuthor. Contains metadata (query, total_records, records_returned, date_retrieved) and array of SearchRecord objects.

  export interface SearchResult {
    metadata: SearchMetadata;
    records: SearchRecord[];
    error?: string;
    parameters?: Record<string, unknown>;
  }