PDF Spec (PDF Agent Stack)

Look up ISO 32000 (PDF) clauses, requirements and terms. A reference, not a conformance checker.

Quick Install

Automated & IDE Setup

Copy the AI prompt to install this server into Claude Code, Cursor, or another agent — or use 1-click editor setup below.

One-click editor setup isn’t available for this listing yet — we don’t have a confirmed install command, and we’d rather show nothing than point your editor at the wrong package or host. Follow the project’s own setup instructions, linked above.

Manual Client & Custom JSON ConfigExpand JSON ▾

No confirmed setup config for this listing yet. We only publish a config block when the install details come from the project itself — its README, its docs, or a verified owner. We haven’t found those for PDF Spec (PDF Agent Stack), and we’d rather show nothing than a guess you’d paste into your client. Follow the project’s own setup instructions for the current steps.

Documentation Overview

PDF SPEC MCP Server

日本語版 README はこちら

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides structured access to ISO 32000 (PDF) specification documents. Enables LLMs to navigate, search, and analyze PDF specifications through well-defined tools.

[!IMPORTANT] This is a specification reference, not a rule engine. It retrieves and structures the text of ISO 32000 — clauses, tables, definitions, and shall/should/may requirements. It does not examine a PDF file, and it cannot tell you whether a document conforms to anything. Conformance verdicts come from pdf-verify-mcp (validate_conformance / evaluate_policy).

The distinction matters because three different things get conflated: declaration — a label the file wrote about itself ("I am PDF/A" in the metadata). Writing it is not evidence / conformance — whether the file actually meets the standard. There is no way to prove it in full; you can only find where it breaks the rules / validation — what a validator (veraPDF and the like) reports against the checks it implements. A pass means "this inspection did not fail", not "the file conforms to the standard". Reading a shall here tells you what the standard requires — not whether your file meets it.

A search that returns nothing means "cannot answer", not "no such requirement." ISO 19005 (PDF/A) and ETSI PAdES are outside this corpus; see list_specs → coverage.gaps.

What each PDF family server does — and does not do

Server	Does	Does not
pdf-spec-mcp (this)	Search, retrieve and extract requirements from 17 PDF-related documents	Is not a rule engine. Does not define business rules, inspect PDF files, or validate schemas. ISO 19005 (PDF/A) is not part of the corpus
pdf-reader-mcp	Extract text / tables / structure tree / fonts / annotations / images / signature fields	Does not verify cryptography. Does not read the incremental-update history, does not map object IDs to coordinates, does not OCR
pdf-writer-mcp	Create, page operations, tagging, forms, annotations, metadata, attachments, PDF/A-3b scaffolding	Does not sign. Does not make the file meet the standard — it can write a label, not conformance
pdf-verify-mcp	Conformance validation (delegated to veraPDF), cryptographic signature verification, tamper detection, policy verdicts	Does not prove the file meets the standard (it can only find where it breaks the rules). Does not vouch for the signer's identity. Does not judge whether the content is true

[!IMPORTANT] PDF specification files are NOT included in this package. You must obtain the PDF specification documents separately and place them in a local directory.

Download from: PDF Association — Sponsored Standards

See "Setup" for details.

Features

Multi-spec support — Auto-discovers and manages up to 17 PDF-related documents (ISO 32000-2, PDF/UA, Tagged PDF guides, etc.)
Structured content extraction — Headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, and notes from any section
Full-text search — Keyword search with section-aware context snippets
Requirements extraction — Extracts normative language (shall / must / may) per ISO conventions
Definitions lookup — Term definitions from Section 3 (Definitions)
Table extraction — Multi-page table detection with header merging
Version comparison — Diff PDF 1.7 vs PDF 2.0 section structures
Bounded-concurrency processing — Parallel page processing for large documents
On-disk index cache — The search index and the full requirements scan are built once per PDF and reused by every later process (ISO 32000-2: ~6 s → ~0.2 s)

Architecture

mermaid

graph LR
    subgraph Client["MCP Client"]
        LLM["LLM<br/>(Claude, etc.)"]
    end

    subgraph Server["PDF Spec MCP Server"]
        direction TB
        MCP["MCP Server<br/>index.ts"]

        subgraph Tools["Tools Layer"]
            direction LR
            T1["list_specs"]
            T2["get_structure"]
            T3["get_section"]
            T4["search_spec"]
            T5["get_requirements"]
            T6["get_definitions"]
            T7["get_tables"]
            T8["compare_versions"]
        end

        subgraph Services["Services Layer"]
            direction LR
            REG["Registry<br/>Auto-discovery"]
            LOADER["Loader<br/>LRU Cache"]
            SVC["PDFService<br/>Orchestration"]
            CMP["CompareService<br/>Version Diff"]
        end

        subgraph Extractors["Extractors"]
            direction LR
            OUTLINE["OutlineResolver<br/>TOC & Section Index"]
            CONTENT["ContentExtractor<br/>Structured Extraction"]
            SEARCH["SearchIndex<br/>Full-text Search"]
            REQ["RequirementExtractor"]
            DEF["DefinitionExtractor"]
        end

        subgraph Utils["Utils"]
            direction LR
            CACHE["LRU Cache"]
            CONC["Concurrency"]
            VALID["Validation"]
        end
    end

    subgraph PDFs["PDF Spec Files (obtained separately)"]
        direction LR
        PDF1["ISO 32000-2<br/>(PDF 2.0)"]
        PDF2["ISO 32000-1<br/>(PDF 1.7)"]
        PDF3["TS 32001–32005<br/>PDF/UA, etc."]
    end

    LLM <-->|"stdio / JSON-RPC"| MCP
    MCP --> Tools
    Tools --> Services
    Services --> Extractors
    Services --> Utils
    LOADER --> PDFs
    REG -->|"Filename pattern<br/>auto-discovery"| PDFs

    style Client fill:#e8f4f8,stroke:#2196F3
    style PDFs fill:#fff3e0,stroke:#FF9800
    style Tools fill:#e8f5e9,stroke:#4CAF50
    style Services fill:#f3e5f5,stroke:#9C27B0
    style Extractors fill:#fce4ec,stroke:#E91E63
    style Utils fill:#f5f5f5,stroke:#9E9E9E

Layer Overview

Layer	Responsibility
Tools	MCP tool schema definitions & handlers (input validation)
Services	Business logic (PDF registry, loader, orchestration)
Extractors	Information extraction from PDFs (TOC, content, search, requirements, definitions)
Utils	Shared utilities (cache, concurrency, validation)

Setup

1. Obtain PDF Specification Files

[!WARNING] PDF specifications are copyrighted documents and are not included in this package. Download them from the sources below and place them in a local directory.

Document	Source
ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0)	PDF Association
ISO 32000-1 (PDF 1.7)	Adobe (free)
TS 32001–32005, PDF/UA, etc.	PDF Association — Sponsored Standards

All 17 files below are supported. You do not need all of them — place only the specs you need (at minimum, ISO 32000-2 is recommended).

Code

pdf-specs/
│
│ ── Standards ─────────────────────────────
├── ISO_32000-2_sponsored_EC3.pdf          # iso32000-2  : PDF 2.0 EC3 (recommended; falls back to -ec2.pdf)
├── ISO_32000-2-2020_sponsored.pdf         # iso32000-2-2020 : PDF 2.0 original
├── PDF32000_2008.pdf                      # pdf17       : PDF 1.7 (for version comparison)
├── pdfreference1.7old.pdf                 # pdf17old    : Adobe PDF Reference 1.7
│
│ ── Technical Specifications (TS) ─────────
├── ISO_TS_32001-2022_sponsored_EC3.pdf    # ts32001     : Hash extensions (SHA-3)
├── ISO_TS_32002-2022_sponsored_EC3.pdf    # ts32002     : Digital signature extensions (ECC/PAdES)
├── ISO_TS_32003-2023_sponsored.pdf        # ts32003     : AES-GCM encryption
├── ISO-TS-32004-2024_sponsored.pdf        # ts32004     : Integrity protection
├── ISO-TS-32005-2023-sponsored.pdf        # ts32005     : Namespace mapping
│
│ ── PDF/UA (Accessibility) ────────────────
├── ISO-14289-1-2014-sponsored.pdf         # pdfua1      : PDF/UA-1
├── ISO-14289-2-2024-sponsored.pdf         # pdfua2      : PDF/UA-2
│
│ ── Guides ────────────────────────────────
├── Tagged-PDF-Best-Practice-Guide.pdf     # tagged-bpg  : Tagged PDF Best Practice
├── Well-Tagged-PDF-WTPDF-1.0.pdf          # wtpdf       : Well-Tagged PDF
├── PDF-Declarations.pdf                   # declarations: PDF Declarations
│
│ ── Application Notes ─────────────────────
├── PDF20_AN001-BPC.pdf                    # an001       : Black Point Compensation
├── PDF20_AN002-AF.pdf                     # an002       : Associated Files
└── PDF20_AN003-ObjectMetadataLocations.pdf # an003      : Object Metadata

2. Install

This package ships a CLI binary (pdf-spec-mcp) intended to be launched by an MCP client. You do not need to install it manually — just point your MCP client to npx @shuji-bonji/pdf-spec-mcp@latest as shown in the next step.

If you want to run it directly from the shell (e.g. for debugging):

Read the full README →View source on GitHub →

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Frequently Asked Questions about PDF Spec (PDF Agent Stack)

We don't have a confirmed install command for PDF Spec (PDF Agent Stack) yet, so we don't publish a generated one — a guessed package name would point at the wrong package or none at all. Follow the project's own README or setup instructions (https://github.com/shuji-bonji/pdf-spec-mcp) for the current steps.

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Technical Specs & Signals

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