Local Docs MCP Prototype

This is a small MCP server that exposes local documentation to development tools. It reads files from a docs directory, chunks them, builds an in-memory TF-IDF search index, and provides MCP tools for listing, reading, searching, and reloading docs.

What It Provides

• list_docs: list readable docs under the configured docs root
• read_doc: read a specific doc by relative path
• search_docs: search local docs and return matching chunks with line numbers
• reload_docs: rebuild the in-memory index after files change

Run It

python3 server.py --docs-root docs

The default transport is stdio, which is what most MCP clients expect for a local server.

Verify It

python3 smoke_test.py

The smoke test starts the server over stdio, checks that all expected tools are registered, and calls search_docs.

You can also set the docs root with an environment variable:

DOCS_MCP_ROOT=/path/to/your/docs python3 server.py

Example MCP Client Config

Point your MCP client at the server script:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "local-docs": {
      "command": "python3",
      "args": ["/Users/malimran/Desktop/docs-mcp/server.py", "--docs-root", "/path/to/your/docs"]
    }
  }
}

Prototype Notes

This version intentionally uses an in-memory lexical search index so it works without a database or external embedding API. Good next steps are adding file watching, persistent indexing, richer parsers for doc formats, and optional semantic embeddings.