istefox-dt-mcp

MCP server for DEVONthink 4 — outcome-oriented tools, optional local RAG, privacy-first. Stack: Python 3.12 + FastMCP + ChromaDB + uv.

0.1.0 — first public release (May 2026). Six MCP tools end-to-end, preview-then-apply with audit log + selective undo, .mcpb bundle installable in Claude Desktop. Vector RAG is opt-in experimental — see ADR-008. For day-to-day status, see handoff.md; for project constraints, see CLAUDE.md; for design decisions, see docs/adr/.

Quick Install (3 ways)

A — .mcpb desktop extension (recommended)

Drag-and-drop into Claude Desktop, one-click. The bundle handles its own runtime and dependencies.

1. Download the latest .mcpb from GitHub Releases.
2. Drag it onto the Claude Desktop window (or Settings → Developer → Install Bundle).
3. On first use, macOS will ask for AppleEvents permission — click Allow.

B — pipx install (standalone CLI)

pipx install git+https://github.com/istefox/istefox-dt-mcp

Then add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "istefox-dt-mcp": {
      "command": "istefox-dt-mcp",
      "args": ["serve"]
    }
  }
}

C — Source / dev install

git clone https://github.com/istefox/istefox-dt-mcp.git
cd istefox-dt-mcp
uv sync --all-packages
uv run istefox-dt-mcp doctor

See Setup for full details (macOS permissions, install troubleshooting).

Prerequisites

• macOS 14+ (Sonoma or later)
• DEVONthink 4 (Pro or standard, any license) installed and running
• Disk space: ~300 MB for the bundle, +2 GB if you enable RAG with bge-m3
• AppleEvents permission for the terminal (pipx/dev) or for Claude Desktop (.mcpb) — requested automatically on first use

What you can ask Claude

Examples of natural prompts and the MCP tool each one triggers. All examples assume Claude Desktop with the connector installed and DEVONthink running.

• "Find everything about 'antivibration mounts' from the last 2 years" → search (BM25 by default; hybrid if RAG is enabled)
• "What did we propose to Customer X?" → ask_database (BM25 + synthesis; vector if RAG opt-in is on — see RAG)
• "Find documents similar to this PDF" (with a record selected in DT) → find_related (DT's native See Also/Compare)
• "File this attachment in /Inbox/Triage and tag it urgent" → file_document with preview, shows what it will do, then commit with confirm_token
• "Move every March PDF from the Inbox to /Archive/2026" → bulk_apply (batch dry-run + per-record selective apply)
• "Which databases are open in DT?" → list_databases (read-only, 5-min cache)

Write tools (file_document, bulk_apply) are dry-run by default: the first call always returns a preview. Apply requires an explicit confirm_token. The returned audit_id enables selective undo via the CLI.

Privacy & security

The connector is designed privacy-first and local-only:

• Everything stays on your machine: no data leaves it. No telemetry, no cloud embeddings, no analytics. The embedding model (if you enable RAG) runs locally via sentence-transformers.
• Append-only SQLite audit log for every operation (reads included) at ~/.local/share/istefox-dt-mcp/audit.sqlite. Default 90-day retention, configurable.
• Write tools always default to dry_run=true, with a preview-then-apply pattern guarded by a short-TTL confirm_token (5 min default).
• Selective undo via audit_id: every write op stores the before-state and is restorable with istefox-dt-mcp undo <audit_id>.
• Clean-room implementation, MIT license: no code copied from GPL-licensed projects (see Legal constraints).
• Suitable for sensitive data: contracts, invoices, personal notes, customer correspondence.

Roadmap

Full backlog in handoff.md.

Troubleshooting top 5

For anything not listed: uv run istefox-dt-mcp doctor produces a full diagnostic report (DT running, permissions, cache, RAG state).

Status

0.1.0 first public release: 6 MCP tools end-to-end, validated in Claude Desktop with real data. 163 unit + contract tests green. .mcpb bundle distributable. Audit log + selective undo working. CI on Ubuntu (lint + mypy + unit + contract) and macOS-14 (import + bundle smoke + nightly).

What it does

A DEVONthink 4 connector for MCP that goes beyond a 1:1 wrapper of the scripting dictionary.

The six tools:

The two write tools follow the preview-then-apply pattern: calling them with dry_run=true returns a preview plus a preview_token (the audit_id of the dry-run); a second call with dry_run=false plus confirm_token=<preview_token> actually applies the change. The returned audit_id enables selective undo via the CLI.

Out of MVP scope (post-0.1.0): summarize_topic, create_smart_rule — see ADR-004.

Stack

Minimum DT version: DEVONthink 4.0. DT3 is not supported — see ADR-007.

Repository structure

.
├── apps/
│   ├── server/      MCP server (FastMCP, stdio in v1; HTTP+OAuth → v2)
│   └── sidecar/     RAG sidecar (ChromaDB + embeddings)
├── libs/
│   ├── adapter/     JXA bridge + cache + errors + JXA scripts
│   └── schemas/     Shared Pydantic v2 models (common, tools, audit, errors)
├── tests/
│   ├── unit/        Unit tests (157 tests)
│   ├── contract/    VCR-style replay against captured JXA outputs (6 tests)
│   ├── integration/ Real-DT smoke + latency benchmark (7 tests, opt-in)
│   └── benchmark/   Micro-benchmarks (opt-in)
├── docs/
│   └── adr/         Architecture decision records
├── .github/workflows/   CI (Ubuntu) + Integration (macOS-14) + Release (manual) + Publish-Registry
├── scripts/             build_mcpb.sh + smoke_e2e.sh
├── server.json          MCP Registry manifest
├── manifest.json        .mcpb bundle manifest
├── pyproject.toml       uv workspace + ruff + black + mypy + pytest
├── CLAUDE.md            Mandatory project constraints
├── memory.md            Decisions + context
└── handoff.md           Session-to-session handover

Setup

# Prerequisites: macOS, DEVONthink 4 installed

# Install uv (if missing — alternative: brew install uv)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Clone + sync workspace
git clone https://github.com/istefox/istefox-dt-mcp.git
cd istefox-dt-mcp
uv sync --all-packages

macOS Automation permission (mandatory)

DEVONthink only responds to Apple Events from apps that have explicit permission. On the first uv run istefox-dt-mcp doctor with DT running, macOS will show a "X wants to control DEVONthink" dialog: click OK.

If you don't see the dialog (because you clicked "Don't Allow" earlier):

1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation.
2. Find the terminal or app you're running from (Warp, iTerm, Terminal, Claude Desktop).
3. Enable the toggle for DEVONthink.

Typical error when permission is denied: PERMISSION_DENIED with AppleScript code -1743. The connector intercepts it and suggests the affected app in the recovery_hint.

If your terminal doesn't appear in the Automation list, try tccutil reset AppleEvents <bundle-id> (e.g. com.apple.Terminal, com.googlecode.iterm2) and re-run the probe so macOS can prompt fresh.

Quick start

# Lint + format check
uv run ruff check .
uv run black --check .

# Unit + contract tests (~6s)
uv run pytest tests/unit tests/contract -v

# Tests with coverage
uv run pytest tests/unit --cov=apps --cov=libs --cov-report=term

# Integration tests against real DT (opt-in; requires DT running + AppleEvents)
uv run pytest tests/integration -m integration --benchmark-enable -v

# Micro-benchmarks (opt-in: cache + bridge overhead)
uv run pytest tests/benchmark --benchmark-enable --benchmark-only

# CLI
uv run istefox-dt-mcp --help
uv run istefox-dt-mcp doctor       # health check (requires DT running)
uv run istefox-dt-mcp serve        # stdio server (for Claude Desktop)
uv run istefox-dt-mcp audit list --recent 5   # last 5 audit entries

Performance tuning (env vars)

For .mcpb installs (Claude Desktop): since v0.0.22 these four variables are configurable from the Claude Desktop UI without editing files. Open Settings → Extensions → istefox-dt-mcp → Configure and you'll see a form with human-readable labels for each option. Edit + Save + restart the server.

For pipx/dev installs: set the env vars in your shell profile (~/.zshrc) or in the launch command.

RAG (vector search) — opt-in experimental

⚠️ Experimental in 0.1.0: the RAG code is complete and unit-tested, but the embedding model default has not been validated cross-corpus yet. See ADR-008 for the criteria to promote it as the 0.2.0 default. If you enable RAG now, be aware that quality depends heavily on your corpus — feedback via GitHub issues is very welcome.

The server runs in BM25-only mode by default (zero overhead, no models to download). To enable vector search:

# 1. Enable the RAG provider (env var)
export ISTEFOX_RAG_ENABLED=1

# 2. (Optional) Override the model — default is MiniLM-L12-v2
export ISTEFOX_RAG_MODEL=BAAI/bge-m3   # ~2.2 GB, higher quality

# 3. Index a DT database (one-shot — automatic sync covered below)
uv run istefox-dt-mcp reindex <your-database-name>
uv run istefox-dt-mcp reindex <your-database-name> --limit 100   # partial test

# 4. Verify the index
uv run istefox-dt-mcp doctor
# {... "rag": {"indexed_count": N, "embedding_model": "..."}}

# 5. Start the server and use search mode=hybrid or ask_database
uv run istefox-dt-mcp serve

ChromaDB is embedded and persisted at ~/.local/share/istefox-dt-mcp/vectors/. Lazy load: the model is downloaded/loaded on the first call to search or ask_database in semantic mode, not at startup.

Automatic sync (opt-in)

For real-time incremental indexing via DT4 smart rules + periodic reconciliation:

# 1. (Optional) generate a webhook token
export ISTEFOX_WEBHOOK_TOKEN="$(openssl rand -hex 16)"

# 2. Start the daemon
uv run istefox-dt-mcp watch \
    --port 27205 \
    --databases <your-database-name> \
    --reconcile-interval-s 21600   # every 6h

# 3. Configure the DT4 smart rule (see docs/smart-rules/sync_rag.md)
# 4. Manual reconciliation now and then:
uv run istefox-dt-mcp reconcile <your-database-name>

For auto-start at boot: see docs/smart-rules/sync_rag.md §"launchd auto-start".

Claude Desktop integration (dev)

For end users, see Quick Install. This section covers the dev workflow (bundle build and manual config for source installs).

Build the .mcpb bundle (only requires bash + zip + unzip):

./scripts/build_mcpb.sh
# Output: dist/istefox-dt-mcp-<version>.mcpb (~290 KB)

The bundle uses server.type=python with a bash wrapper (bundle_main.sh) that detects uv across common install locations (Homebrew, cargo, pipx, mise, asdf, plus the ISTEFOX_UV_BIN override). Claude Desktop manages the runtime lifecycle.

Manual claude_desktop_config.json (source install):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "istefox-dt-mcp": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "/path/to/istefox-dt-mcp", "run", "istefox-dt-mcp", "serve"]
    }
  }
}

Path: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json. Restart Claude Desktop. All six tools become available.

RAG and other options: via env vars in the process that launches claude (manual config) or via the Settings → Extensions → Configure UI for the bundle (since v0.0.22).

Key documents

Legal constraints

• Clean-room implementation: no code copied from dvcrn/mcp-server-devonthink (GPL-3.0).
• Privacy by design: no user data leaves the machine by default. Embeddings are generated locally; the audit log is local.
• Personal namespace: istefox (this is a personal project, not a work project).

License

MIT License © 2026 Stefano Ferri.

You may use, modify, and redistribute the code (including commercially) as long as you keep the copyright notice. See LICENSE for the full text.