GroupDocs.Total MCP Server

Unified MCP server that exposes the full GroupDocs.Total document-processing toolset — annotation, comparison, conversion, markdown, merging, metadata, parsing, redaction, signing, watermarking, plus cross-product document inspection and page preview — as AI-callable tools for Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and other MCP agents. Designed to be used standalone — attaching the individual product MCPs (GroupDocs.Annotation.Mcp, GroupDocs.Signature.Mcp, …) alongside is unnecessary and would duplicate tools.

Installation

One-click installs pre-fill every supported setting: edit the placeholder host path in the volume mount after install; an empty GROUPDOCS_LICENSE_PATH runs in evaluation mode.

More clients - ready-made configs for Claude Code, Codex CLI, Visual Studio 2022, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, and JetBrains Rider live in install/generated/.

This product ships via Docker (GHCR) only. GroupDocs.Total bundles every engine (including Parser's embedded ONNX models), so the packed tool far exceeds NuGet.org's 250 MB limit - so dnx and dotnet tool install are not available for it. When upstream ships a slimmer engine that packs under the limit, the standard NuGet flow returns (see the revert notes in .github/workflows/publish_prod.yml).

docker run --rm -i \
  -v $(pwd)/documents:/data \
  ghcr.io/groupdocs-total/total-net-mcp:latest

Images are multi-arch (linux/amd64 + linux/arm64), tagged latest plus an immutable version tag per release (e.g. :26.9.0). To pin, replace :latest with the version tag - recommended for shared configs and CI.

Available MCP Tools (38 total)

Tools follow {Product}{Verb}{Noun} PascalCase to disambiguate across domains. Cross-product tools stay short.

Cross-product (2)

Annotation (8)

Signature (7)

Comparison (1) · Conversion (2) · Markdown (2)

Merger (2) · Metadata (2)

Parser (5) · Redaction (4) · Watermark (3)

Example prompts

• "Convert contract.docx to PDF, then sign it with a QR code containing 'Signed by Alice', then watermark every page with 'CONFIDENTIAL'"
• "Compare old.pdf and new.pdf, list every annotation in the result, and preview page 1"
• "Extract all tables from report.xlsx as Markdown and redact every email address"
• "Read the metadata of every PDF in /uploads, then strip it, then preview the cleaned page 1 of each"
• "Find every barcode in invoice.pdf, then merge invoice.pdf + receipt.pdf into combined.pdf"

Licensing

The MCP server itself is MIT; the underlying GroupDocs engines require a license for production use. Without one the server runs in evaluation mode:

• Each bundled engine applies its own evaluation limits: output watermarks / evaluation notices, page limits, and per-process document-open caps (1-15 documents depending on the engine).

To lift the limits, mount your GroupDocs.Total.lic into the container and point GROUPDOCS_LICENSE_PATH at it (see the Claude Desktop example above):

• Get a free 30-day temporary license
• Purchase a license | Product page

Configuration

Usage with Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "groupdocs-total": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "-v", "/path/to/documents:/data", "ghcr.io/groupdocs-total/total-net-mcp:latest"]
    }
  }
}

To use a license, add "-v", "/path/to/license-folder:/license", "-e", "GROUPDOCS_LICENSE_PATH=/license/GroupDocs.Total.lic" before the image name. To pin a version, replace :latest with the release tag.

Usage with VS Code / GitHub Copilot

Use the Install in VS Code button above, or add to .vscode/mcp.json (also in install/generated/vscode-mcp.json):

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "storage_path",
      "description": "Base folder for input and output files.",
      "password": false
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "groupdocs-total": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "-v", "${input:storage_path}:/data", "ghcr.io/groupdocs-total/total-net-mcp:latest"]
    }
  }
}

Usage with Docker Compose

cd docker
docker compose up

Edit docker/docker-compose.yml to point volumes at your local documents folder.

License

MIT — see LICENSE