docsearch

MCP server for searching and reading binary document files.

Requirements

• uv (for uvx)

Install

Claude Code

User-scope (available in all projects):

claude mcp add --scope user docsearch -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/AllenComm/mcp-docsearch docsearch

Project-scope (available only in the current project):

claude mcp add docsearch -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/AllenComm/mcp-docsearch docsearch

Or add directly to your MCP config (~/.claude/.mcp.json for user-scope, .mcp.json for project-scope):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "docsearch": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "git+https://github.com/AllenComm/mcp-docsearch", "docsearch"]
    }
  }
}

OpenCode

Add to your opencode.json:

{
  "mcp": {
    "docsearch": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["uvx", "--from", "git+https://github.com/AllenComm/mcp-docsearch", "docsearch"],
      "enabled": true,
      "timeout": 30000
    }
  }
}

Agent Instructions

Add to your AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md so your agent knows when to use these tools:

Use the docgrep and docread MCP tools instead of grep/read for binary documents (PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, ODT, ODS, ODP, RTF, EPUB).

Supported Formats

| Format | Extension | Extraction | |--------|-----------|------------| | PDF | .pdf | Page-by-page text | | Word | .docx | Paragraphs + tables | | PowerPoint | .pptx | Slide-by-slide text frames + tables | | Excel | .xlsx | Sheet-by-sheet, tab-separated rows | | OpenDocument Text | .odt | Paragraphs | | OpenDocument Spreadsheet | .ods | Sheet-by-sheet, tab-separated rows | | OpenDocument Presentation | .odp | Slide-by-slide text | | Rich Text Format | .rtf | Full text | | EPUB | .epub | Chapter-by-chapter text (spine order) |

Tools

docgrep

Search through documents for text matching a regex pattern. Returns filepath:section:matching_line.

Parameters:

• directory (required) — path to search recursively
• pattern (required) — regex pattern to match
• case_sensitive — default false
• file_types — filter to specific extensions, e.g. ["pdf", "docx"]
• max_results — default 100

docgrep(directory="/home/user/reports", pattern="quarterly revenue")
docgrep(directory="/home/user/docs", pattern="TODO|FIXME", file_types=["docx"])

docread

Read full text content from a single document. Output is auto-truncated at 40,000 characters — use range to narrow results for large documents.

Parameters:

• filepath (required) — path to the document
• range — filter to specific sections by format:
• PDF: page numbers, e.g. "1-5", "3", "1,3,5-7"
• PPTX/ODP: slide numbers, e.g. "2-3"
• XLSX/ODS: sheet name or 1-based index, with optional row range after colon, e.g. "1", "Sheet1", "1:1-100", "Revenue:50-200"
• EPUB: chapter numbers, e.g. "1-5"
• DOCX/ODT/RTF: line numbers, e.g. "1-50", "100-200"

docread(filepath="/home/user/reports/q4.pdf", range="1-3")
docread(filepath="/home/user/data/sales.xlsx", range="1:1-100")
docread(filepath="/home/user/data/sales.xlsx", range="Revenue:50-200")