tika-mcp

tika-mcp is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that wraps Apache Tika and exposes document parsing tools over streamable-http.

It supports local files and optional remote URL ingestion with SSRF protections, plus extraction for plain text, metadata, HTML, MIME detection, and recursive archive content.

Features

• Async direct Tika Server HTTP integration (/tika, /meta, /detect/stream, /rmeta)
• MCP tools: extract_text, extract_metadata, detect_mime_type, extract_html, extract_documents
• Local file controls (TIKA_ALLOW_LOCAL_FILES, TIKA_ALLOWED_LOCAL_ROOTS)
• Optional remote URL ingestion with blocked private/internal targets by default
• Bounded input and output sizes with clear tool-facing errors
• Optional bearer-token protection for exposed MCP HTTP deployments

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• Apache Tika Server reachable at TIKA_URL (default http://localhost:9998)

Installation

pip install tika-mcp

Or from source:

pip install .

Quick Start

1. Install tika-mcp:

   pip install tika-mcp
   

2. Start Apache Tika Server:

   docker run --rm -p 9998:9998 apache/tika:3.3.1.0
   

3. Start tika-mcp:

   export TIKA_URL=http://localhost:9998
   tika-mcp
   

   It now listens at http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp (transport: streamable-http).

Tools

Every tool takes a single argument, source - a local file path, or an http(s):// URL (remote URLs must be enabled). All tools are read-only.

Tool	What it does
extract_text	Extract plain text from a document (PDF, Office, HTML, and other Tika-supported formats).
extract_metadata	Return document metadata (author, title, content type, page count, …) without the body text.
detect_mime_type	Detect the file's MIME/content type from its bytes, without full parsing.
extract_html	Extract structured XHTML with headings, tables, and links preserved.
extract_documents	Unpack a container/archive/compound file (zip, email, compound doc) and return each embedded document.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
TIKA_MCP_HOST	127.0.0.1	MCP bind host
TIKA_MCP_PORT	8000	MCP bind port
TIKA_MCP_PATH	/mcp	Streamable HTTP endpoint path
TIKA_MCP_BEARER_TOKEN	unset	Optional bearer token required for MCP HTTP requests
TIKA_URL	http://localhost:9998	Tika Server base URL
TIKA_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	30	Request timeout for Tika and remote downloads
TIKA_MAX_FILE_SIZE_MB	25	Maximum local/remote input file size
TIKA_MAX_OUTPUT_SIZE_MB	10	Max MCP tool response size; also caps the streamed Tika response body before it is buffered
TIKA_ALLOW_LOCAL_FILES	true	Enable local file sources
TIKA_ALLOWED_LOCAL_ROOTS	unset	Comma-separated allowed local path roots
TIKA_ALLOW_REMOTE_URLS	false	Enable remote URL sources
TIKA_ALLOWED_URL_SCHEMES	http,https	Allowed remote URL schemes
TIKA_BLOCK_PRIVATE_IPS	true	Block private/loopback/link-local/internal targets
TIKA_MAX_REDIRECTS	5	Max remote URL redirects
TIKA_RECURSIVE_MAX_DEPTH	unset	Max recursive archive depth
TIKA_RECURSIVE_MAX_FILES	unset	Max number of recursive extracted files
TIKA_RECURSIVE_MAX_TOTAL_SIZE_MB	unset	Max total recursive expanded text size
TIKA_PDF_EXTRACT_MARKED_CONTENT	unset	Send X-Tika-PDFextractMarkedContent; true preserves paragraph structure for tagged PDFs
TIKA_PDF_EXTRACT_ANNOTATION_TEXT	unset	Send X-Tika-PDFextractAnnotationText; false avoids duplicate hyperlink URLs
TIKA_PDF_SORT_BY_POSITION	unset	Send X-Tika-PDFsortByPosition; true orders text by visual position (untagged PDFs)
TIKA_COLLAPSE_BLANK_LINES	false	Collapse runs of blank lines in extracted text (like cat -s)

Example

Set any of the above in your shell, then run tika-mcp. It starts a streamable-HTTP server on TIKA_MCP_HOST:TIKA_MCP_PORT at TIKA_MCP_PATH (default http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp):

export TIKA_URL=http://localhost:9998
export TIKA_MCP_PORT=8000
export TIKA_PDF_EXTRACT_MARKED_CONTENT=true
export TIKA_PDF_EXTRACT_ANNOTATION_TEXT=false
export TIKA_COLLAPSE_BLANK_LINES=true
tika-mcp

PDF structure preservation

By default Tika extracts PDF text line-by-line, which breaks paragraphs mid-sentence. For tagged PDFs (Google Docs / Word "Save as PDF"), rebuild real paragraphs with:

export TIKA_PDF_EXTRACT_MARKED_CONTENT=true    # use the PDF's structure tree for paragraphs
export TIKA_PDF_EXTRACT_ANNOTATION_TEXT=false  # drop duplicate hyperlink URLs
export TIKA_COLLAPSE_BLANK_LINES=true          # squeeze blank lines (like `cat -s`)
tika-mcp

For untagged PDFs (no structure tree), use TIKA_PDF_SORT_BY_POSITION=true instead, which orders text by visual position.

Streamable HTTP Client Configuration

Endpoint format:

• URL: http://<TIKA_MCP_HOST>:<TIKA_MCP_PORT><TIKA_MCP_PATH>
• transport: streamable-http

Example MCP client config (generic):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tika": {
      "transport": {
        "type": "streamable-http",
        "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp"
      }
    }
  }
}

Bearer Token Protection

Set TIKA_MCP_BEARER_TOKEN to require authenticated MCP requests:

TIKA_MCP_BEARER_TOKEN=super-secret tika-mcp

Request example:

curl -X POST "http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer super-secret" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"1","method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-03-26","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"example","version":"1.0.0"}}}'

License

MIT