DocuGenerate MCP Server

A local Model Context Protocol server that wraps the DocuGenerate document-generation API, so Claude Desktop can generate documents (invoices, contracts, letters) from your templates — just by asking.

This is a local demo build: TypeScript, the official MCP SDK, and STDIO transport. You register it in Claude Desktop and it runs on your machine.

The productionised “official” version would instead be a remote HTTP MCP server with OAuth — this local stdio build is deliberately the demo shape.

Tools

Tool	Args	Returns
list_templates	(optional) name_contains	Each template's id, name, and merge_fields (the tags to supply).
get_template_fields	template_id	Merge fields for one template (fallback / double-check).
generate_document	template_id, data (object of field→value), format? = pdf | docx (default pdf)	A hosted URL to the generated document (a link, not binary).

How it maps to the DocuGenerate API

Confirmed against the API Quick Start and live probes of api.docugenerate.com:

• Base URL: https://api.docugenerate.com/v1
• Auth header: Authorization: <API Key> — the raw key, no Bearer prefix.
• GET /template → list templates (each has id, name, tags.valid = merge fields)
• GET /template/{id} → one template
• POST /document with { template_id, data: [ {...} ], output_format: ".pdf" } → responds with document_uri (the hosted document link).

Setup

Requires Node 20+.

npm install
npm run build      # compiles to dist/ via tsc

Get your API key from the DocuGenerate Settings page (https://app.docugenerate.com).

Before the demo: create at least one template in the DocuGenerate dashboard — for the prompts below, make an “Invoice” template with merge tags such as Company Name, Invoice Number, Date, Due Date, Line Items, and Total. list_templates will report each template's exact merge fields.

Register in Claude Desktop

Edit claude_desktop_config.json:

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

Add this server (use the absolute path to the built dist/index.js):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "docugenerate": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/DocuGenerate-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "DOCUGENERATE_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Then fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop. The docugenerate tools appear under the 🔌 / tools menu.

Demo prompts

Once registered, try these in Claude Desktop:

1. “List my DocuGenerate templates.”
2. “Generate an invoice from the Invoice template for Acme Corp — 3 line items: Design $1200, Development $3400, Hosting $200 — due in 30 days.”
3. “Now generate the same as a DOCX.”

Claude will call list_templates to discover the Invoice template and its fields, then generate_document (PDF, then DOCX) and hand you back the document URLs.

Local testing (without Claude Desktop)

You can drive the server over stdio directly. Set the key and run the smoke test:

export DOCUGENERATE_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
npm run build
node dist/index.js   # server waits for MCP JSON-RPC on stdin; Ctrl-C to exit

A quick end-to-end generate_document smoke test (replace TEMPLATE_ID with a real id from list_templates):

export DOCUGENERATE_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
TEMPLATE_ID=your_template_id node --input-type=module -e '
import { spawn } from "node:child_process";
const srv = spawn("node", ["dist/index.js"], { env: process.env });
let buf = "";
srv.stdout.on("data", d => { buf += d.toString();
  for (const line of buf.split("\n")) { if (!line.trim()) continue;
    try { const m = JSON.parse(line);
      if (m.id === 2) { console.log(m.result.content[0].text); srv.kill(); process.exit(0); }
    } catch {} }
});
srv.stderr.on("data", d => process.stderr.write("[srv] " + d));
const send = o => srv.stdin.write(JSON.stringify(o) + "\n");
send({ jsonrpc:"2.0", id:1, method:"initialize", params:{ protocolVersion:"2024-11-05", capabilities:{}, clientInfo:{ name:"cli", version:"0" } } });
send({ jsonrpc:"2.0", method:"notifications/initialized" });
send({ jsonrpc:"2.0", id:2, method:"tools/call", params:{ name:"generate_document",
  arguments:{ template_id: process.env.TEMPLATE_ID,
    data: { "Company Name": "Acme Corp", "Total": "$4,800" }, format: "pdf" } } });
setTimeout(() => { srv.kill(); process.exit(1); }, 15000);
'

Error handling

Every tool returns a readable error instead of crashing. Failures surface the HTTP status and the DocuGenerate error body, with a hint for the common cases:

• 401 / 403 → “check that DOCUGENERATE_API_KEY is set to a valid key…”
• 404 → “the template_id may be wrong or deleted. Use list_templates…”
• 429 → “rate limit hit; wait a moment and try again.”
• Network/DNS/TLS failures and non-JSON responses are also caught and reported.

Troubleshooting

• generate_document returns a 500 “Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'length')”. This is a DocuGenerate-side error that means the template file is malformed — a hand-assembled .docx missing the standard Office parts (styles.xml, settings.xml, etc.) will upload fine but fail at render time. Fix: author the template in Microsoft Word / Google Docs (or upload it through the DocuGenerate dashboard) so it's a complete .docx, then re-upload. A normal Word-authored invoice template works.

Configuration

Env var	Required	Default
DOCUGENERATE_API_KEY	✅	—
DOCUGENERATE_BASE_URL	—	https://api.docugenerate.com/v1

License

MIT