distill-mcp

An MCP server that connects any MCP-compatible client to Distill, converting local documents to clean, token-efficient Markdown before the LLM reads them. Typical token reduction is 40–80% compared to raw document text, letting the model fit more content into its context window and reason over it faster.

Works with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and any other MCP client that supports tool calling.

Two Modes

	Lightweight	Full (Docker)
Requires Docker	No	Yes
DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, native PDF, HTML	Yes	Yes
Scanned PDF (OCR)	No	Yes
Audio (MP3, WAV, etc.)	No	Yes
Quality score	No	Yes
Install time	~2 min	~10 min

Lightweight needs only Python and pip. Full needs Docker with the Distill service running. See the setup guides for details.

Quick install

No global install required:

npx -y distill-mcp-server

Then configure Claude Desktop — see Lightweight setup or Full setup for step-by-step instructions.

Configuration

Add the server to your claude_desktop_config.json.

Lightweight mode — macOS / Linux:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "distill-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "distill-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "DISTILL_MCP_CONFIG": "{\"mode\":\"lightweight\",\"python_path\":\"python3\"}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Lightweight mode — Windows:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "distill-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "distill-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "DISTILL_MCP_CONFIG": "{\"mode\":\"lightweight\",\"python_path\":\"py\"}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Full mode — all platforms:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "distill-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "distill-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "DISTILL_MCP_CONFIG": "{\"mode\":\"full\",\"distill_url\":\"http://localhost:7860\"}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Full config key reference is in the setup guides: Lightweight | Full

CLAUDE.md snippet

Paste this into your project's CLAUDE.md so Claude knows how to use the tool automatically. Copy the block below as-is:

## Document Conversion — distill-mcp

When the user references a local file path (e.g. a PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX,
HTML, or audio file), ALWAYS call the `convert_and_save` tool before reading
or reasoning about the document. Do not read the original file directly via
filesystem tools — use only the Markdown returned by `convert_and_save` as
the document content.

### Rules

1. Call `convert_and_save` with the absolute file path before doing anything
   else with the document.
2. Use ONLY the Markdown output from `convert_and_save` as the document
   content. Never read the original file with filesystem tools.
3. If the response includes `"overwritten": true`, tell the user that a
   previous cached version was replaced before proceeding.
4. If the response includes any `warnings`, surface them to the user before
   proceeding with the document content.
5. If `convert_and_save` returns an unsupported format error, tell the user
   which formats are supported and suggest switching modes if applicable.

### Supported formats

| Category | Lightweight | Full (Docker) |
|---|---|---|
| Word | .docx, .doc, .odt | .docx, .doc, .odt |
| Excel | .xlsx, .xlsm, .csv | .xlsx, .xlsm, .csv |
| PowerPoint | .pptx, .ppt | .pptx, .ppt |
| PDF | .pdf (native text) | .pdf (native + scanned OCR) |
| HTML | .html, .htm | .html, .htm |
| Audio | — | .mp3, .wav, .m4a, .flac, .ogg |
| Other | — | .epub, .json, .sql, .wsdl, .wsd |

### Usage

Say "convert using distill" followed by the file path:
> Convert using distill C:\Users\me\Documents\report.pdf to markdown

The snippet is also available in docs/CLAUDE.md-snippet.md.

Supported formats

Category	Extensions	Lightweight	Full
Microsoft Word	.docx, .doc, .odt	Yes	Yes
Microsoft Excel	.xlsx, .xlsm, .csv	Yes	Yes
Microsoft PowerPoint	.pptx, .ppt	Yes	Yes
PDF (native text)	.pdf	Yes	Yes
PDF (scanned/OCR)	.pdf	No	Yes
HTML	.html, .htm	Yes	Yes
Audio	.mp3, .wav, .m4a, .flac, .ogg	No	Yes
EPUB	.epub	No	Yes
JSON	.json	No	Yes
SQL	.sql	No	Yes
WSDL	.wsdl, .wsd	No	Yes

Privacy

All processing happens locally. In lightweight mode, documents are converted by the distill-core Python library on your machine — no data leaves your computer. In full mode, documents are sent to the Distill Docker service running locally on your machine — no data is sent to external services.

Built on

Distill — document-to-Markdown conversion engine.

License

MIT