Installation

Published stable

Install from npm. Current production is @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp@4.1.1 — a sole-Rust MCP server launched by a thin Node entrypoint.

npm install -g @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp
# or pin
npm install -g @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp@4.1.1

What you get:

1. Thin launcher package
2. One platform native package as an optional dependency (auto-selected)

There is no TypeScript PDF runtime in the production package. If the matching native binary is missing, the server fails closed.

Requirements

• Node.js >= 22.13.0 (launcher only)
• Supported platforms:
  • macOS arm64 / x64
  • Linux x64 gnu / arm64 gnu
  • Windows x64
• Optional OCR / visual providers are opt-in (not required for core text paths)

Claude Code

claude mcp add pdf-reader -- npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-reader": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Config file locations

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\\Claude\\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Cursor / VS Code / Codex / other MCP clients

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-reader": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Dual-era clients (Gemini Antigravity CLI)

Some MCP hosts probe with SEP-2575 server/discover before the legacy initialize handshake (for example Gemini Antigravity CLI on Windows). The native server answers that discovery request on stdio without closing the transport, then completes initialize as usual. If an older published build fails with expect initialized request / EOF on plugin load, upgrade to a release that includes this fix.

Run directly

npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp
# or after global install
pdf-reader-mcp

HTTP transport:

MCP_TRANSPORT=http pdf-reader-mcp

Platforms

Platform	Native package
macOS arm64	@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp-darwin-arm64
macOS x64	@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp-darwin-x64
Linux x64	@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp-linux-x64-gnu
Linux arm64	@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp-linux-arm64-gnu
Windows x64	@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp-win32-x64-msvc

Next

• Product proof — before/after, flagship workflows, performance bounds
• Getting started — tools and first calls
• Migration / recovery — historical notes only

Historical TypeScript baseline (not production)

Immutable external comparison/recovery pin only:

npm install -g @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp@3.0.14