PDF SPEC MCP Server

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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):

bash

PDF_SPEC_DIR=/path/to/pdf-specs npx -y @shuji-bonji/pdf-spec-mcp@latest

Or install it globally (optional):

Terminal

npm install -g @shuji-bonji/pdf-spec-mcp
PDF_SPEC_DIR=/path/to/pdf-specs pdf-spec-mcp

3. Configure MCP Client

Environment Variable

Variable	Description	Default
`PDF_SPEC_DIR`	Directory containing PDF specification files	(required)
`PDF_SPEC_CACHE_DIR`	Where the on-disk index cache lives (see Index cache)	`${XDG_CACHE_HOME:-~/.cache}/pdf-spec-mcp`
`PDF_SPEC_CACHE`	Set to `off` to neither read nor write the index cache	on

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-spec": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@shuji-bonji/pdf-spec-mcp@latest"],
      "env": {
        "PDF_SPEC_DIR": "/path/to/pdf-specs"
      }
    }
  }
}

[!IMPORTANT] Use @latest (or pin a version). npx -y <pkg> without a version keeps running whatever it cached the first time — -y only skips the install prompt, it does not check for updates. A bare specifier will happily run a months-old release. @latest makes npx check the registry on each start; pin @0.4.0 instead if you want reproducibility. To clear a stale cache: rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx.

Cursor / VS Code

Add to .cursor/mcp.json or VS Code MCP settings:

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-spec": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@shuji-bonji/pdf-spec-mcp@latest"],
      "env": {
        "PDF_SPEC_DIR": "/path/to/pdf-specs"
      }
    }
  }
}

Index cache

Two operations walk every page of a specification: the first search_spec on a spec builds its full-text index (ISO 32000-2, 1023 pages: about 6 s on a laptop), and get_requirements without a section scans every section (about 11 s). Everything else opens only the pages it needs and answers in well under a second.

Since 0.5.0 those two results are written to disk after the first build and read back by every later process — an MCP client that starts one server per session no longer pays the build each time. The second process answers the same search_spec in about 0.2 s and the full requirements scan in about 0.02 s, from byte-for-byte the same index.

Location: ${PDF_SPEC_CACHE_DIR:-${XDG_CACHE_HOME:-~/.cache}/pdf-spec-mcp}/v1/<version>/<spec>.<kind>.<sha256[0:16]>.json. The whole 17-spec corpus is about 18 MB per package version.
Key: package version, pdfjs-dist version, spec id, and the SHA-256 of the PDF. A replaced PDF, an upgraded server, or an upgraded pdfjs all miss and rebuild. Entries of older versions are left in place (another install may still use them); --clear-cache removes everything.
Failure is a miss, never an error: an unreadable, truncated, or foreign file is rebuilt; an unwritable directory is reported once on stderr and the server carries on without a cache.
It is derived from your copy of the PDFs and stays on your machine. It is not part of the package and must not be redistributed — the specifications are copyrighted.

Nothing about searching changes: the same in-memory structure is searched by the same code. Only where it comes from (built vs. read) does.

Pre-building the cache

The cache fills lazily, one spec at a time as tools touch it. To warm every spec up front — after installing, after upgrading, or from cron — run the CLI (it uses the same code path as the tools, processes specs sequentially, and exits):

bash

PDF_SPEC_DIR=/path/to/pdf-specs npx -y @shuji-bonji/pdf-spec-mcp@latest --build-cache
#   --spec=iso32000-2,pdf17   only these specs
#   --force                   rebuild even when a valid entry exists
npx -y @shuji-bonji/pdf-spec-mcp@latest --cache-info     # directory, key, entries
npx -y @shuji-bonji/pdf-spec-mcp@latest --clear-cache    # remove the directory

A full build of the 17-spec corpus takes about a minute on a laptop.

Available Tools

All tools accept an optional spec parameter to target a specific specification (default: iso32000-2).

Tool	Description
`list_specs`	List all discovered PDF specifications with metadata
`get_structure`	Get section hierarchy (table of contents) with configurable depth
`get_section`	Get structured content of a specific section
`search_spec`	Full-text keyword search across a specification
`get_requirements`	Extract normative requirements (shall/must/may)
`get_definitions`	Lookup term definitions
`get_tables`	Extract table structures from a section
`compare_versions`	Compare PDF 1.7 and PDF 2.0 section structures

`list_specs` — Discover Specifications

List all available specification documents. Use the returned IDs as the spec parameter in other tools.

jsonc

// List all specs
{ }

// Filter by category
{ "category": "ts" }        // Technical specs only
{ "category": "pdfua" }     // PDF/UA only
{ "category": "guide" }     // Guide documents only

`get_structure` — Table of Contents

Get the section hierarchy (TOC tree) of a specification.

jsonc

// PDF 2.0 top-level sections only
{ "max_depth": 1 }

// Expand to 2 levels
{ "max_depth": 2 }

// TS 32002 (Digital Signatures) full structure
{ "spec": "ts32002" }

// PDF/UA-2 structure
{ "spec": "pdfua2", "max_depth": 2 }

`get_section` — Section Content

Get structured content (headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, notes) of a specific section.

A parent section returns its entire subtree (its preamble followed by all subsections, in document order). Top-level clauses can be very large — prefer the most specific section number.

jsonc

// PDF 2.0 Section 7.3.4.2 (Literal Strings)
{ "section": "7.3.4.2" }

// PDF 2.0 Annex A
{ "section": "Annex A" }

// TS 32002 Section 5
{ "spec": "ts32002", "section": "5" }

// PDF/UA-2 Section 8 (Tagged PDF)
{ "spec": "pdfua2", "section": "8" }

`search_spec` — Full-text Search

Search across a specification with section-aware context snippets. The first call on a spec builds its index (a few seconds); the index is then cached on disk (see Index cache).

jsonc

// Search PDF 2.0 for "digital signature"
{ "query": "digital signature" }

// Limit results
{ "query": "font", "max_results": 5 }

// Search within TS 32002
{ "spec": "ts32002", "query": "CMS" }

`get_requirements` — Normative Requirements

Extract normative requirements (shall / must / may) per ISO conventions.

jsonc

// All requirements in section 12.8
{ "section": "12.8" }

// Only "shall" requirements
{ "section": "12.8", "level": "shall" }

// Only "shall not" requirements
{ "section": "7.3", "level": "shall not" }

// PDF/UA-2 requirements
{ "spec": "pdfua2", "section": "8", "level": "shall" }

`get_definitions` — Term Definitions

Look up term definitions from Section 3 (Definitions).

jsonc

// Search for "font" definitions
{ "term": "font" }

// List all definitions
{ }

// PDF/UA definitions
{ "spec": "pdfua2", "term": "artifact" }

`get_tables` — Table Extraction

Extract table structures (headers, rows, captions) from a section. Multi-page tables are automatically merged.

jsonc

// All tables in section 7.3.4.2 (Table 3 — Escape sequences)
{ "section": "7.3.4.2" }

// Specific table only (0-based index)
{ "section": "7.3.4.2", "table_index": 0 }

// TS spec tables
{ "spec": "ts32002", "section": "5" }

`compare_versions` — Version Comparison

Compare section structures between PDF 1.7 (ISO 32000-1) and PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000-2). Uses title-based automatic matching to detect matched, added, and removed sections.

[!NOTE] This tool requires both PDF 1.7 (PDF32000_2008.pdf) and PDF 2.0 files in PDF_SPEC_DIR.

jsonc

// Diff section 12.8 (Digital Signatures)
{ "section": "12.8" }

// Compare all top-level sections
{ }

Supported Specifications

The server auto-discovers PDF files in PDF_SPEC_DIR by filename pattern matching:

Category	Spec IDs	Documents
Standard	`iso32000-2`, `iso32000-2-2020`, `pdf17`, `pdf17old`	ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0), ISO 32000-1 (PDF 1.7)
Technical Spec	`ts32001` – `ts32005`	Hash, Digital Signatures, AES-GCM, Integrity, Namespace
PDF/UA	`pdfua1`, `pdfua2`	Accessibility (ISO 14289-1, 14289-2)
Guide	`tagged-bpg`, `wtpdf`, `declarations`	Tagged PDF, Well-Tagged PDF, Declarations
App Note	`an001` – `an003`	BPC, Associated Files, Object Metadata

Directory Structure

Code

src/
├── index.ts              # Entry point: MCP server on stdio, or the cache CLI
├── cli.ts                # --build-cache / --clear-cache / --cache-info
├── config.ts             # Configuration & spec patterns
├── errors.ts             # Error hierarchy (PDFSpecError → sub-classes)
├── services/
│   ├── pdf-registry.ts       # Auto-discovery of PDF files
│   ├── pdf-loader.ts         # PDF loading with LRU cache
│   ├── pdf-service.ts        # Orchestration layer
│   ├── index-store.ts        # On-disk cache for the search / requirements indexes
│   ├── compare-service.ts    # Version comparison
│   ├── outline-resolver.ts   # Section index builder
│   ├── content-extractor.ts  # Structured content extraction
│   ├── search-index.ts       # Full-text search index
│   ├── requirement-extractor.ts
│   └── definition-extractor.ts
├── tools/
│   ├── definitions.ts    # MCP tool schemas
│   └── handlers.ts       # Tool implementations
├── types/
│   └── index.ts          # Shared type definitions
└── utils/
    ├── concurrency.ts    # mapConcurrent (bounded Promise.all)
    ├── text.ts           # Text normalization
    ├── cache.ts          # LRU cache
    ├── file-hash.ts      # SHA-256 of a PDF (index cache key)
    ├── validation.ts     # Input validation
    └── logger.ts         # Structured logger

Development

bash

git clone https://github.com/shuji-bonji/pdf-spec-mcp.git
cd pdf-spec-mcp
npm install
npm run build

# Unit tests
npm run test

# E2E tests (requires PDF files in ./pdf-spec/)
npm run test:e2e

# Lint & format
npm run lint
npm run format:check

License

MIT

PDF SPEC MCP Server

What each PDF family server does — and does not do

Features

Architecture

Layer Overview

Setup

1. Obtain PDF Specification Files

2. Install

3. Configure MCP Client

Environment Variable

Claude Desktop

Cursor / VS Code

Index cache

Pre-building the cache

Available Tools

list_specs — Discover Specifications

get_structure — Table of Contents

get_section — Section Content

search_spec — Full-text Search

get_requirements — Normative Requirements

get_definitions — Term Definitions

get_tables — Table Extraction

compare_versions — Version Comparison

Supported Specifications

Directory Structure

Development

License

`list_specs` — Discover Specifications

`get_structure` — Table of Contents

`get_section` — Section Content

`search_spec` — Full-text Search

`get_requirements` — Normative Requirements

`get_definitions` — Term Definitions

`get_tables` — Table Extraction

`compare_versions` — Version Comparison