📄 @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Production-ready PDF processing server for AI agents

5-10x faster parallel processing • Y-coordinate content ordering • 94%+ test coverage • 103 tests passing

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🚀 Overview

PDF Reader MCP is a production-ready Model Context Protocol server that empowers AI agents with enterprise-grade PDF processing capabilities. Extract text, images, and metadata with unmatched performance and reliability.

The Problem:

// Traditional PDF processing
- Sequential page processing (slow)
- No natural content ordering
- Complex path handling
- Poor error isolation

The Solution:

// PDF Reader MCP
- 5-10x faster parallel processing ⚡
- Y-coordinate based ordering 📐
- Flexible path support (absolute/relative) 🎯
- Per-page error resilience 🛡️
- 94%+ test coverage ✅

Result: Production-ready PDF processing that scales.

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⚡ Key Features

Performance

• 🚀 5-10x faster than sequential with automatic parallelization
• ⚡ 12,933 ops/sec error handling, 5,575 ops/sec text extraction
• 💨 Process 50-page PDFs in seconds with multi-core utilization
• 📦 Lightweight with minimal dependencies

Developer Experience

• 🎯 Path Flexibility - Absolute & relative paths, Windows/Unix support (v1.3.0)
• 🖼️ Smart Ordering - Y-coordinate based content preserves document layout
• 🛡️ Type Safe - Full TypeScript with strict mode enabled
• 📚 Battle-tested - 103 tests, 94%+ coverage, 98%+ function coverage
• 🎨 Simple API - Single tool handles all operations elegantly

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📊 Performance Benchmarks

Real-world performance from production testing:

Operation	Ops/sec	Performance	Use Case
Error handling	12,933	⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡	Validation & safety
Extract full text	5,575	⚡⚡⚡⚡	Document analysis
Extract page	5,329	⚡⚡⚡⚡	Single page ops
Multiple pages	5,242	⚡⚡⚡⚡	Batch processing
Metadata only	4,912	⚡⚡⚡	Quick inspection

Parallel Processing Speedup

Document	Sequential	Parallel	Speedup
10-page PDF	~2s	~0.3s	5-8x faster
50-page PDF	~10s	~1s	10x faster
100+ pages	~20s	~2s	Linear scaling with CPU cores

Benchmarks vary based on PDF complexity and system resources.

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📦 Installation

Claude Code

claude mcp add pdf-reader -- npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-reader": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

VS Code

code --add-mcp '{"name":"pdf-reader","command":"npx","args":["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"]}'

Cursor

1. Open Settings → MCP → Add new MCP Server
2. Select Command type
3. Enter: npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Windsurf

Add to your Windsurf MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-reader": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cline

Add to Cline's MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-reader": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Warp

1. Go to Settings → AI → Manage MCP Servers → Add
2. Command: npx, Args: @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Ontheia

Add the server in Settings → MCP Servers → Add Server with command npx and args @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp. See Ontheia's compatible MCP servers for the full list.

Smithery (One-click)

npx -y @smithery/cli install @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp --client claude

Manual Installation

# Quick start - zero installation
npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

# Or install globally
npm install -g @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

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🎯 Quick Start

Basic Usage

{
  "sources": [{
    "path": "documents/report.pdf"
  }],
  "include_full_text": true,
  "include_metadata": true,
  "include_page_count": true
}

Result:

• ✅ Full text content extracted
• ✅ PDF metadata (author, title, dates)
• ✅ Total page count
• ✅ Structural sharing - unchanged parts preserved

Extract Specific Pages

{
  "sources": [{
    "path": "documents/manual.pdf",
    "pages": "1-5,10,15-20"
  }],
  "include_full_text": true
}

Absolute Paths (v1.3.0+)

// Windows - Both formats work!
{
  "sources": [{
    "path": "C:\\Users\\John\\Documents\\report.pdf"
  }],
  "include_full_text": true
}

// Unix/Mac
{
  "sources": [{
    "path": "/home/user/documents/contract.pdf"
  }],
  "include_full_text": true
}

No more "Absolute paths are not allowed" errors!

Extract Images with Natural Ordering

{
  "sources": [{
    "path": "presentation.pdf",
    "pages": [1, 2, 3]
  }],
  "include_images": true,
  "include_full_text": true
}

Response includes:

• Text and images in exact document order (Y-coordinate sorted)
• Base64-encoded images with metadata (width, height, format)
• Natural reading flow preserved for AI comprehension

Batch Processing

{
  "sources": [
    { "path": "C:\\Reports\\Q1.pdf", "pages": "1-10" },
    { "path": "/home/user/Q2.pdf", "pages": "1-10" },
    { "url": "https://example.com/Q3.pdf" }
  ],
  "include_full_text": true
}

⚡ All PDFs processed in parallel automatically!

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✨ Features

Core Capabilities

• ✅ Text Extraction - Full document or specific pages with intelligent parsing
• ✅ Image Extraction - Base64-encoded with complete metadata (width, height, format)
• ✅ Content Ordering - Y-coordinate based layout preservation for natural reading flow
• ✅ Metadata Extraction - Author, title, creation date, and custom properties
• ✅ Page Counting - Fast enumeration without loading full content
• ✅ Dual Sources - Local files (absolute or relative paths) and HTTP/HTTPS URLs
• ✅ Batch Processing - Multiple PDFs processed concurrently

Advanced Features

• ⚡ 5-10x Performance - Parallel page processing with Promise.all
• 🎯 Smart Pagination - Extract ranges like "1-5,10-15,20"
• 🖼️ Multi-Format Images - RGB, RGBA, Grayscale with automatic detection
• 🛡️ Path Flexibility - Windows, Unix, and relative paths all supported (v1.3.0)
• 🔍 Error Resilience - Per-page error isolation with detailed messages
• 📏 Large File Support - Efficient streaming and memory management
• 📝 Type Safe - Full TypeScript with strict mode enabled

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🆕 What's New in v1.3.0

🎉 Absolute Paths Now Supported!

// ✅ Windows
{ "path": "C:\\Users\\John\\Documents\\report.pdf" }
{ "path": "C:/Users/John/Documents/report.pdf" }

// ✅ Unix/Mac
{ "path": "/home/john/documents/report.pdf" }
{ "path": "/Users/john/Documents/report.pdf" }

// ✅ Relative (still works)
{ "path": "documents/report.pdf" }

Other Improvements:

• 🐛 Fixed Zod validation error handling
• 📦 Updated all dependencies to latest versions
• ✅ 103 tests passing, 94%+ coverage maintained

v1.2.0 - Content Ordering

• Y-coordinate based text and image ordering
• Natural reading flow for AI models
• Intelligent line grouping

v1.1.0 - Image Extraction & Performance

• Base64-encoded image extraction
• 10x speedup with parallel processing
• Comprehensive test coverage (94%+)

View Full Changelog →

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📖 API Reference

read_pdf Tool

The single tool that handles all PDF operations.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
sources	Array	List of PDF sources to process	Required
include_full_text	boolean	Extract full text content	false
include_metadata	boolean	Extract PDF metadata	true
include_page_count	boolean	Include total page count	true
include_images	boolean	Extract embedded images	false

Source Object

{
  path?: string;        // Local file path (absolute or relative)
  url?: string;         // HTTP/HTTPS URL to PDF
  pages?: string | number[];  // Pages to extract: "1-5,10" or [1,2,3]
}

Examples

Metadata only (fast):

{
  "sources": [{ "path": "large.pdf" }],
  "include_metadata": true,
  "include_page_count": true,
  "include_full_text": false
}

From URL:

{
  "sources": [{
    "url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.00001.pdf"
  }],
  "include_full_text": true
}

Page ranges:

{
  "sources": [{
    "path": "manual.pdf",
    "pages": "1-5,10-15,20"  // Pages 1,2,3,4,5,10,11,12,13,14,15,20
  }]
}

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🔧 Advanced Usage

Content is returned in natural reading order based on Y-coordinates:

Document Layout:
┌─────────────────────┐
│ [Title]       Y:100 │
│ [Image]       Y:150 │
│ [Text]        Y:400 │
│ [Photo A]     Y:500 │
│ [Photo B]     Y:550 │
└─────────────────────┘

Response Order:
[
  { type: "text", text: "Title..." },
  { type: "image", data: "..." },
  { type: "text", text: "..." },
  { type: "image", data: "..." },
  { type: "image", data: "..." }
]

Benefits:

• AI understands spatial relationships
• Natural document comprehension
• Perfect for vision-enabled models
• Automatic multi-line text grouping

Enable extraction:

{
  "sources": [{ "path": "manual.pdf" }],
  "include_images": true
}

Response format:

{
  "images": [{
    "page": 1,
    "index": 0,
    "width": 1920,
    "height": 1080,
    "format": "rgb",
    "data": "base64-encoded-png..."
  }]
}

Supported formats: RGB, RGBA, Grayscale Auto-detected: JPEG, PNG, and other embedded formats

Absolute paths (v1.3.0+) - Direct file access:

{ "path": "C:\\Users\\John\\file.pdf" }
{ "path": "/home/user/file.pdf" }

Relative paths - Workspace files:

{ "path": "docs/report.pdf" }
{ "path": "./2024/Q1.pdf" }

Configure working directory:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-reader-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"],
      "cwd": "/path/to/documents"
    }
  }
}

Strategy 1: Page ranges

{ "sources": [{ "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "1-20" }] }

Strategy 2: Progressive loading

// Step 1: Get page count
{ "sources": [{ "path": "big.pdf" }], "include_full_text": false }

// Step 2: Extract sections
{ "sources": [{ "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "50-75" }] }

Strategy 3: Parallel batching

{
  "sources": [
    { "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "1-50" },
    { "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "51-100" }
  ]
}

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🔒 Security & Sandboxing

By default the server can read any local file the host process can access and fetch any HTTP(S) URL. When running outside a sandbox you should restrict it to a specific working set.

Restricting filesystem access

Use --allow-dir (repeatable) or the MCP_PDF_ALLOWED_DIRS env var (: or , separated). Once set, all path sources must resolve inside one of the allowed directories — relative paths, absolute paths, and .. traversal are all checked after resolution.

# CLI flags
npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp --allow-dir=/srv/pdfs --allow-dir=/data/reports

# Environment
MCP_PDF_ALLOWED_DIRS="/srv/pdfs:/data/reports" npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-reader": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp", "--allow-dir=/srv/pdfs"]
    }
  }
}

Disabling or restricting HTTP

# Block all URL sources
npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp --no-http
MCP_PDF_ALLOW_HTTP=false npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

# Allowlist hosts (everything else rejected)
npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp --allow-host=cdn.example.com --allow-host=files.internal
MCP_PDF_ALLOWED_HOSTS="cdn.example.com,files.internal" npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Setting	CLI flag	Environment variable	Default
Filesystem allowlist	--allow-dir=<path> (repeatable)	MCP_PDF_ALLOWED_DIRS (: or , separated)	unrestricted
Disable HTTP	--no-http	MCP_PDF_ALLOW_HTTP=false	enabled
HTTP host allowlist	--allow-host=<host> (repeatable)	MCP_PDF_ALLOWED_HOSTS (, separated)	any host

Denied requests fail fast with an Access denied error before any disk read or network call.

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🔧 Troubleshooting

"Absolute paths are not allowed"

Solution: Upgrade to v1.3.0+

npm update @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Restart your MCP client completely.

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"File not found"

Causes:

• File doesn't exist at path
• Wrong working directory
• Permission issues

Solutions:

Use absolute path:

{ "path": "C:\\Full\\Path\\file.pdf" }

Or configure cwd:

{
  "pdf-reader-mcp": {
    "command": "npx",
    "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"],
    "cwd": "/path/to/docs"
  }
}

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"No tools showing up"

Solution:

npm cache clean --force
rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json
npm install @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp@latest

Restart MCP client completely.

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🌐 HTTP Transport (Remote Access)

By default, PDF Reader MCP uses stdio transport for local use. You can also run it as an HTTP server for remote access from multiple machines.

Quick Start

# Run as HTTP server on port 8080
MCP_TRANSPORT=http npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
MCP_TRANSPORT	stdio	Transport type: stdio or http
MCP_HTTP_PORT	8080	HTTP server port
MCP_HTTP_HOST	0.0.0.0	HTTP server hostname
MCP_API_KEY	-	Optional API key for authentication

Docker Deployment

FROM oven/bun:1
WORKDIR /app
RUN bun add @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp
ENV MCP_TRANSPORT=http
ENV MCP_HTTP_PORT=8080
EXPOSE 8080
CMD ["bun", "node_modules/@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp/dist/index.js"]

MCP Client Configuration (HTTP)

{
  "servers": {
    "pdf-reader": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://your-server.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "X-API-Key": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Endpoints

Endpoint	Method	Description
/mcp	POST	JSON-RPC endpoint
/mcp/health	GET	Health check

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🏗️ Architecture

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Runtime	Node.js 22+ ESM
PDF Engine	PDF.js (Mozilla)
Validation	Zod + JSON Schema
Protocol	MCP SDK
Language	TypeScript (strict)
Testing	Vitest (103 tests)
Quality	Biome (50x faster)
CI/CD	GitHub Actions

Design Principles

• 🔒 Security First - Flexible paths with secure defaults
• 🎯 Simple Interface - One tool, all operations
• ⚡ Performance - Parallel processing, efficient memory
• 🛡️ Reliability - Per-page isolation, detailed errors
• 🧪 Quality - 94%+ coverage, strict TypeScript
• 📝 Type Safety - No any types, strict mode
• 🔄 Backward Compatible - Smooth upgrades always

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🧪 Development

Prerequisites:

• Node.js >= 22.0.0
• pnpm (recommended) or npm

Setup:

git clone https://github.com/SylphxAI/pdf-reader-mcp.git
cd pdf-reader-mcp
pnpm install && pnpm build

Scripts:

pnpm run build       # Build TypeScript
pnpm run test        # Run 103 tests
pnpm run test:cov    # Coverage (94%+)
pnpm run check       # Lint + format
pnpm run check:fix   # Auto-fix
pnpm run benchmark   # Performance tests

Quality:

• ✅ 103 tests
• ✅ 94%+ coverage
• ✅ 98%+ function coverage
• ✅ Zero lint errors
• ✅ Strict TypeScript

Quick Start:

1. Fork repository
2. Create branch: git checkout -b feature/awesome
3. Make changes: pnpm test
4. Format: pnpm run check:fix
5. Commit: Use Conventional Commits
6. Open PR

Commit Format:

feat(images): add WebP support
fix(paths): handle UNC paths
docs(readme): update examples

See CONTRIBUTING.md

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📚 Documentation

• 📖 Full Docs - Complete guides
• 🚀 Getting Started - Quick start
• 📘 API Reference - Detailed API
• 🏗️ Design - Architecture
• ⚡ Performance - Benchmarks
• 🔍 Comparison - vs. alternatives

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🗺️ Roadmap

✅ Completed

• Image extraction (v1.1.0)
• 5-10x parallel speedup (v1.1.0)
• Y-coordinate ordering (v1.2.0)
• Absolute paths (v1.3.0)
• 94%+ test coverage (v1.3.0)

🚀 Next

• OCR for scanned PDFs
• Annotation extraction
• Form field extraction
• Table detection
• 100+ MB streaming
• Advanced caching
• PDF generation

Vote at Discussions

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🏆 Recognition

Featured on:

• Smithery - MCP directory
• Glama - AI marketplace
• MseeP.ai - Security validated

Trusted worldwide • Enterprise adoption • Battle-tested

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🤝 Support

• 🐛 Bug Reports
• 💬 Discussions
• 📖 Documentation
• 📧 Email

Show Your Support: ⭐ Star • 👀 Watch • 🐛 Report bugs • 💡 Suggest features • 🔀 Contribute

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📊 Stats

103 Tests • 94%+ Coverage • Production Ready

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📄 License

MIT © Sylphx

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🙏 Credits

Built with:

• PDF.js - Mozilla PDF engine
• Bun - Fast JavaScript runtime

Special thanks to the open source community ❤️

Powered by Sylphx

This project uses the following @sylphx packages:

• @sylphx/mcp-server-sdk - MCP server framework
• @sylphx/vex - Schema validation
• @sylphx/biome-config - Biome configuration
• @sylphx/tsconfig - TypeScript configuration
• @sylphx/bump - Version management
• @sylphx/doctor - Project health checker

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Star History

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