How do I install the Dewey MCP server?

Add the following block to your claude_desktop_config.json under mcpServers: "mcpServers": { "dewey": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "Dewey"] } }

Agentic search over your Dewey document collections from any MCP-compatible client.

Is the Dewey MCP server free to use?

Yes. Dewey is listed on AllMCPs as a free, open Model Context Protocol server you can install into Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.

How do I install the Dewey MCP server?

Add the following block to your claude_desktop_config.json under mcpServers: "mcpServers": { "dewey": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "Dewey"] } }

Agentic search over your Dewey document collections from any MCP-compatible client.

Is the Dewey MCP server free to use?

Yes. Dewey is listed on AllMCPs as a free, open Model Context Protocol server you can install into Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.

@meetdewey/mcp

MCP server for Dewey — search and research your document collections from Claude, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent. See the full API reference for details.

Installation

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json (or equivalent MCP client config):

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dewey": {
      "command": "/bin/sh",
      "args": ["-lc", "npx -y @meetdewey/mcp"],
      "env": {
        "DEWEY_API_KEY": "dwy_live_...",
        "DEWEY_COLLECTION_ID": "..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Note for Windows users: replace "command": "/bin/sh" and "args": ["-lc", "npx -y @meetdewey/mcp"] with "command": "npx" and "args": ["-y", "@meetdewey/mcp"] — the login-shell wrapper is only needed on macOS/Linux to pick up Homebrew and nvm PATH entries that Claude Desktop doesn't inherit.

Environment variables

Variable	Required	Description
`DEWEY_API_KEY`	Yes	Your Dewey project API key
`DEWEY_COLLECTION_ID`	No	Default collection ID. When set, tools that accept `collection_id` will fall back to this value.
`DEWEY_API_URL`	No	Override the API base URL (default: `https://api.meetdewey.com/v1`)

Available tools

Search & research

Tool	Description
`dewey_list_collections`	List all collections in the project, including description and research instructions when set
`dewey_search`	Hybrid semantic + keyword search over chunk content
`dewey_scan_sections`	Lightweight search over section titles and summaries
`dewey_research`	Agentic research query with configurable depth — returns a grounded, cited answer
`dewey_get_section`	Fetch the full Markdown content of a section by ID

Document management

Tool	Description
`dewey_list_documents`	List documents in a collection with their processing status
`dewey_get_document_sections`	List all sections in a document (table of contents with heading levels and IDs)
`dewey_get_document_markdown`	Fetch the full converted Markdown content of a document
`dewey_retry_document`	Retry a failed document — clears error state and re-queues processing
`dewey_delete_document`	Permanently delete a document and all its derived data

Claims & contradictions

Tool	Description
`dewey_list_claims`	List extracted factual claims from a collection or specific document, filterable by importance (1–5)
`dewey_list_contradictions`	List detected contradictions — clusters of conflicting claims with explanations and suggested resolutions
`dewey_detect_contradictions`	Trigger an async contradiction detection run across all claims in a collection
`dewey_get_contradiction_run`	Get the status and stats of the latest contradiction detection run (use to poll after `dewey_detect_contradictions`)
`dewey_resolve_contradiction`	Apply a resolution instruction to a contradiction or dismiss it

Deduplication

Tool	Description
`dewey_detect_duplicates`	Trigger an async deduplication run — identifies near-duplicate documents by measuring shared content across chunks and marks one per cluster as canonical
`dewey_get_duplicate_run`	Get the status and stats of the latest deduplication run (use to poll after `dewey_detect_duplicates`)
`dewey_list_duplicate_groups`	List near-duplicate groups with canonical + members and coverage percentages
`dewey_promote_duplicate_canonical`	Promote a different member to canonical; old canonical becomes near_duplicate
`dewey_disband_duplicate_group`	Disband a group; former members rejoin retrieval as distinct documents

Non-canonical documents are excluded from retrieval and contradiction detection. Requires enableDeduplication: true on the collection (set via dewey_update_collection or the Dewey dashboard).

Collection settings

Tool	Description
`dewey_get_collection_stats`	Get document count, storage, section/chunk/claim counts, and processing status breakdown
`dewey_update_collection`	Update collection name, description, research instructions, visibility, and feature flags
`dewey_recompute_summaries`	Re-run AI section summarization across all documents (e.g. after changing the LLM model)
`dewey_recompute_captions`	Re-run AI captioning for all images and tables across all documents
`dewey_delete_collection`	Permanently delete a collection and all its data

Research instructions

Collections can have natural-language instructions that are automatically injected into the research system prompt — for example, noting units, preferred sources, or how to handle missing information. They can be set in the Dewey dashboard, via the API, or directly through dewey_update_collection. When dewey_resolve_contradiction is used to apply a resolution, the suggested instruction is also appended here automatically.

Tool usage pattern

A typical read-only research workflow:

dewey_list_collections — discover available collections and understand their purpose
dewey_scan_sections — quickly explore document structure to identify relevant sections
dewey_get_section — load full content of a specific section
dewey_search — retrieve the most relevant chunks for a focused question
dewey_research — run a full agentic research query for questions that need multi-step reasoning

For deeper analysis and curation:

dewey_get_collection_stats — assess how much content has been processed
dewey_list_claims — surface the most important facts across documents
dewey_list_contradictions — identify where documents disagree
dewey_resolve_contradiction — apply or dismiss each contradiction, updating collection instructions automatically

License

MIT