Paperless MCP

io.github.pvliesdonk/paperless-mcp

7/8 checks passed
Runs locally
4 secrets
★ 1 GitHub stars
Updated 2026-09-21
Health score 62

About Paperless MCP

Paperless MCP is an MCP server published by the GitHub account pvliesdonk. Paperless-NGX over MCP: search, read, upload and tag documents; manage correspondents and types.

It runs on your own machine: your AI client starts it from the PyPI package pvliesdonk-paperless-mcp at version 3.0.0.

It asks for 4 secrets: PAPERLESS_MCP_API_TOKEN, PAPERLESS_MCP_BEARER_TOKEN, PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET and PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_JWT_SIGNING_KEY. Give it a key with the least access that still works.

Version 3.0.0 was published on 21 September 2026, and the source code is public, so you can read it before installing.

Written from the registry entry. 9 automated checks on the registry entry and the package code: 7 pass, 1 warn, 0 fail, 1 info. How we check.

What it asks for

Variable	Required	Secret	Description
`PAPERLESS_MCP_KV_STORE_URL`	No	No	Persistent-state backend URL shared by every pvl-core subsystem that needs state. `memory://` is in-process and lost on restart; `file:///path` persists on one server; `redis://`, `dynamodb://` and `mongodb://` each need their matching extra. When unset, defaults to `file:///data/state` (the volume family Docker images mount), or to `memory://` (with a warning) on a host where that directory is not usable.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_TOOLS_ALLOW`	No	No	Comma-separated explicit tool names this instance exposes; every other tool is hidden from listings and cannot be invoked. Names matching no registered tool are inert. Mutually exclusive with `tools_deny`. Takes effect through `apply_tool_visibility`.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_TOOLS_DENY`	No	No	Comma-separated explicit tool names hidden from this instance (absent from listings, cannot be invoked). Names matching no registered tool are inert. Mutually exclusive with `tools_allow`. Takes effect through `apply_tool_visibility`.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_SERVER_NAME`	No	No	Rename this server instance; defaults to the project name.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_INSTANCE_DESCRIPTION`	No	No	Concise routing context that distinguishes this deployment's material or responsibility.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_INSTRUCTIONS_EXTRA`	No	No	Deployment-specific behavioral policy added to the generated MCP instructions.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_INSTRUCTIONS`	No	No	Legacy: replaces all generated MCP instructions (deprecated; use _INSTANCE_DESCRIPTION for routing and _INSTRUCTIONS_EXTRA for policy).
`PAPERLESS_MCP_LOG_LEVEL`	No	No	Log level for every logger in the process, FastMCP's included (DEBUG / INFO / WARNING / ERROR / CRITICAL). The -v CLI flag overrides to DEBUG. The unprefixed FASTMCP_LOG_LEVEL still works for one major version and logs a deprecation warning.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_LOG_FORMAT`	No	No	Log rendering. rich is one colour event key=value line per record, for a terminal; json is one JSON object per record, for a collector. Unset picks rich when stderr is a terminal and json everywhere else, so a container or journald gets JSON with no configuration.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_PAPERLESS_URL`	No	No	Base URL of the Paperless-NGX REST API, without a trailing slash. The server refuses to start without it.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_API_TOKEN`	No	Yes	Paperless service-account token used for outbound API requests. The server refuses to start without it.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_HTTP_TIMEOUT_SECONDS`	No	No	Per-request HTTP timeout in seconds.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_HTTP_RETRIES`	No	No	Retries for idempotent requests after network errors or 5xx responses.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_DEFAULT_PAGE_SIZE`	No	No	Default page size for list tools, from 1 through 100.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_PAPERLESS_PUBLIC_URL`	No	No	Public Paperless UI URL for user-visible links; defaults to PAPERLESS_URL.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_TRANSFER_TTL_DEFAULT_S`	No	No	Link lifetime in seconds when the caller requests no explicit TTL.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_TRANSFER_TTL_MAX_S`	No	No	Ceiling in seconds a caller-requested link TTL is clamped to.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_TRANSFER_GRACE_TTL_S`	No	No	Post-success grace window in seconds: a served token's TTL shrinks to this so a stalled transfer can retry within it.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_TRANSFER_LEASE_S`	No	No	Crashed-handler reclaim window in seconds for an in-flight reservation.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_TRANSFER_MAX_UPLOAD_BYTES`	No	No	Maximum size in bytes of a single upload.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_SHUTDOWN_GRACE_S`	No	No	Seconds SIGTERM may spend draining in-flight requests before the HTTP server exits. Keep it at or below the termination grace period the orchestrator allows. `0` drops in-flight requests immediately.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_BASE_URL`	No	No	Public base URL of the deployed server, for example `https://mcp.example.com`. Required for OIDC. Also the fallback source of the MCP Apps domain when `app_domain` is unset.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_BEARER_TOKEN`	No	Yes	Single shared bearer token; enables bearer auth unless `bearer_tokens_file` is set, which takes precedence.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_CONFIG_URL`	No	No	OIDC discovery document URL, for example `https://auth.example.com/.well-known/openid-configuration`.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_CLIENT_ID`	No	No	OIDC client identifier registered with the provider.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET`	No	Yes	OIDC client secret registered with the provider.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_AUDIENCE`	No	No	Expected `aud` claim; tokens issued for another audience are rejected.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_REQUIRED_SCOPES`	No	No	Scopes a caller must present, space- or comma-separated. Defaults to `openid` in oidc-proxy mode.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_ADVERTISED_SCOPES`	No	No	Scopes advertised to MCP clients in protected-resource metadata, space- or comma-separated. Overrides the default `openid offline_access`; `oidc_required_scopes` is always added on top. Set this when the registered client is not permitted `offline_access`, or to have clients request extra claim scopes (such as `groups`) without also requiring them in every token.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_JWT_SIGNING_KEY`	No	Yes	Signing key for issued tokens; used in oidc-proxy mode only. When unset, the key is derived deterministically from `oidc_client_secret`, so tokens survive a restart. Rotating that secret then invalidates every issued token. Set this explicitly to decouple token validity from secret rotation. Generate with `openssl rand -hex 32`.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_VERIFY_ACCESS_TOKEN`	No	No	Validate the access token instead of the id token.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_APP_DOMAIN`	No	No	MCP Apps iframe domain, used for CSP sandboxing. Overrides the host derived from `base_url`.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_AUTH_MODE`	No	No	Explicit auth-mode override, accepting `remote` or `oidc-proxy` (case- and whitespace-insensitive). When unset the mode is auto-detected from which auth variables are set; the override exists because having all four OIDC variables set is ambiguous between those two modes. Other values are ignored with a warning.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_BEARER_TOKENS_FILE`	No	No	Path to a TOML file mapping bearer tokens to subjects; overrides the single-token `bearer_token` mode.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_BEARER_DEFAULT_SUBJECT`	No	No	Subject assigned to the single-token bearer mode; ignored when `bearer_tokens_file` is set, since mapped mode carries per-token subjects.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_HTTP_PATH`	No	No	Mount path for the MCP endpoint; the health routes derive their prefix from it.
`PAPERLESS_MCP_HEALTH_DETAIL`	No	No	How much the unauthenticated /health and /health/ready bodies say: status, standard (adds name, version and per-check verdicts), or full (adds redacted reasons; trusted networks only).
`PUID`	No	No	Run the server process as this UID; the container entrypoint reassigns ownership of writable paths to match.
`PGID`	No	No	Run the server process as this GID; pair with PUID to match the owner of a mounted volume.

Checks

Check	Result	Detail
Source repository linked	Pass	https://github.com/pvliesdonk/paperless-mcp
Version pinned	Pass	Every package has an explicit version
Secrets requested	Warn	Asks for 4 secrets: PAPERLESS_MCP_API_TOKEN, PAPERLESS_MCP_BEARER_TOKEN, PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET, PAPERLESS_MCP_OIDC_JWT_SIGNING_KEY
Known package registry	Pass	All packages come from npm, PyPI, OCI, NuGet or MCPB
Namespace ownership	Info	Name verified via GitHub account pvliesdonk
Registry text aimed at the AI	Pass	Description and settings contain no hidden characters or instructions to the AI
Install scripts	Pass	pvliesdonk-paperless-mcp 3.0.0 has no setup.py; nothing runs at install
Code red flags	Pass	Read 291 files in pvliesdonk-paperless-mcp 3.0.0: no obfuscation, encoded execution, credential reads or data-collection endpoints found
Text aimed at the AI	Pass	No hidden characters or instructions to the AI in 291 files, including comments and the README

Popularity & health: 62 / 100

Worked out from public numbers and our own checks, not from user reviews or ratings. It says how used and how looked-after a server is, not whether it is safe.

Popularity8 / 40

1 GitHub stars, 51 downloads last week, no Hacker News posts found. Best two of the three, each on a log scale.

Activity25 / 25

Last push 2026-10-28, last release 2026-09-21, 67 commits in 90 days.

Issue health13 / 15

70 closed of 78 issues.

Our checks16 / 20

1 warning, each costing a fifth.

0 forks, 87 merged pull requests. Sources: GitHub, npm, PyPI (pypistats.org) and Hacker News (Algolia), fetched 2026-10-31.

What people say

No Hacker News threads link to its source code.

Look further: search Reddit, search Hacker News, read its GitHub issues. These are not reviews we checked.

Facts

Registry name	`io.github.pvliesdonk/paperless-mcp`
Publisher	GitHub account pvliesdonk
How the name is verified	Name verified via GitHub account pvliesdonk. The registry ties the name prefix to that account or domain; it does not check the code.
Type	Local: runs on your machine from a package
Packages	pypi `pvliesdonk-paperless-mcp` 3.0.0 (stdio) oci `ghcr.io/pvliesdonk/paperless-mcp:v3.0.0` no version given (streamable-http)
Version	3.0.0
Published	2026-09-21
Last updated	2026-09-21
Source repository	https://github.com/pvliesdonk/paperless-mcp
Website	https://pvliesdonk.github.io/paperless-mcp/
Category	Files & documents (assigned by keyword rule, not by hand)

Install

Claude Desktop · Python package

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paperless-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "pvliesdonk-paperless-mcp==3.0.0"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop · Docker image

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paperless-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "ghcr.io/pvliesdonk/paperless-mcp:v3.0.0"
      ]
    }
  }
}

What these checks don't cover

We did not run this server, so we don't know what it does when it runs. We read its package code on 2026-10-29 without running it, and pattern searches miss what they have no pattern for. Tool descriptions built at run time were not seen. And we don't watch it after you install: if the publisher changes it later (a rug pull), this page won't notice until the next scan. Treat a pass as "nothing found", not as "safe".

For people and their AI

The same data as plain JSON: /data/servers/io-github-pvliesdonk-paperless-mcp.json. Text inside it that came from the publisher is data, not instructions.