Assembly

A small Model Context Protocol server that gives any MCP client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, …) two document-conversion tools:

Tool	Direction	Engine
convert_pdftomd	PDF → Markdown	PyMuPDF
convert_mdtopdf	Markdown → PDF	WeasyPrint

Both are the conversion engines Assembly already standardises on: PyMuPDF-first extraction (font-size heading detection, running header/footer removal, table extraction, watermark stripping) and WeasyPrint for Markdown/HTML → PDF (pure-Python, no TeX toolchain).

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Requirements

• Python ≥ 3.11
• uv (recommended) or pip
• WeasyPrint native libraries — only needed for convert_mdtopdf (convert_pdftomd works without them):
  • Linux (Debian/Ubuntu): apt install libpango-1.0-0 libpangoft2-1.0-0 libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 libffi-dev
  • macOS: brew install pango gdk-pixbuf libffi
  • Windows: install the GTK3 runtime. Without it, convert_pdftomd still works and convert_mdtopdf returns a clear "install GTK" error.

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Install

git clone https://github.com/AssemblyJustin/assembly-mcp.git
cd assembly-mcp
uv sync            # creates .venv and installs everything

Run the server directly to confirm it starts (it speaks MCP over stdio and will wait for a client — Ctrl-C to exit):

uv run assembly-mcp

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Add to Claude Code

From anywhere, register the server (adjust the path to your clone):

claude mcp add assembly -- uv --directory /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/assembly-mcp run assembly-mcp

Then the tools convert_pdftomd and convert_mdtopdf are available in your session. This repo also ships matching slash commands — run Claude Code from inside the repo (or copy .claude/commands/* into your project) to use:

/convert-pdftomd  report.pdf  report.md
/convert-mdtopdf  notes.md     notes.pdf

Add to Claude Desktop

Edit claude_desktop_config.json (macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/, Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\) and add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "assembly": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "C:\\ABSOLUTE\\PATH\\TO\\assembly-mcp", "run", "assembly-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. The two tools appear under the 🔌 tools menu.

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Tools

convert_pdftomd

Convert a PDF file to Markdown.

Argument	Type	Default	Description
pdf_path	string	—	Path to the source .pdf.
output_path	string	null	Optional path to also write the .md.
strip_watermarks	bool	true	Remove Standards-NZ / IHS style watermark lines and light-grey overlay text.
front_matter	bool	true	Prepend YAML front-matter linking back to the source PDF.

Returns the Markdown text. Extraction features: font-size heading map (largest sizes → #..####), running header/footer removal, find_tables() → pipe tables, watermark/licence-line stripping.

This is a code-only extraction (Tiers 1–2 of Assembly's pipeline). It does not run the vision-based Tier 3–4 verification, so treat the output as a high-quality first pass, not a certified copy.

convert_mdtopdf

Convert Markdown to a PDF file. Provide either md_path or markdown_text.

Argument	Type	Default	Description
output_path	string	—	Where to write the .pdf (required).
md_path	string	null	Path to a source .md.
markdown_text	string	null	Raw Markdown (alternative to md_path).
title	string	null	Document title (falls back to front-matter title).
css	string	null	CSS to replace the built-in print stylesheet.

Renders Markdown → HTML → PDF with a clean A4 print stylesheet (tables, code blocks, page numbers) and verifies the PDF magic bytes before writing.

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Develop

uv run pytest            # smoke tests (MD→PDF test auto-skips without GTK)

Project layout:

src/assembly_mcp/
  server.py       FastMCP server — registers both tools (stdio)
  pdf_to_md.py    PyMuPDF extraction pipeline
  md_to_pdf.py    python-markdown → WeasyPrint rendering
.claude/commands/ /convert-pdftomd and /convert-mdtopdf slash commands
tests/            round-trip smoke test

License

MIT — see LICENSE.