docfabric

DocFabric

Document infrastructure layer for AI-optimized access.

Upload any document — PDF, DOCX, HTML, or other formats — and DocFabric converts it into a persistent Markdown representation. The original file is stored alongside the generated Markdown, both accessible through a REST API for management and a read-only MCP server for direct LLM consumption.

The core idea: AI systems shouldn't deal with heterogeneous file formats. DocFabric normalizes everything into clean, character-addressable text that agents can navigate structurally (via heading outlines) or read in precise slices (via offset/limit).

Architecture

DocFabric runs as a single Python process exposing two interfaces:

• REST API (/api) — Full CRUD for document management (upload, update, delete, list, read)
• MCP Server (/mcp) — Read-only tools optimized for LLM access (list, info, outline, read)
• Frontend (localhost:5173) — React SPA for document management via the REST API

Conversion from source formats to Markdown is handled by docling. Storage uses SQLite + local filesystem. The MCP server uses Streamable HTTP via FastMCP.

MCP Tools

Tool	Purpose
list_documents	Scan available documents (id + filename)
get_document_info	Full metadata for a single document
get_document_outline	Heading structure with offset/length for targeted reads
read_document_content	Read markdown content (full or partial via offset/limit)

Status

Implemented (Phase 1)

• Document upload with automatic Markdown conversion
• Full REST CRUD (create, read, update, delete, list with pagination)
• Original file download
• Character-based partial reading
• MCP server with 4 read-only tools
• Structural document navigation via heading outlines
• React frontend for document management

Not yet implemented

• Authentication and authorization
• Semantic search and embeddings
• External source adapters (SharePoint, etc.)
• Document versioning
• Metadata search and filtering
• Multi-tenancy

Getting Started

Pre-built images (recommended)

Run DocFabric with Docker using the pre-built images from GitHub Container Registry:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rawe/docfabric/main/examples/docker-compose/docker-compose.yml
docker compose up -d

To pin a specific version instead of latest:

VERSION=0.1.0 docker compose up -d

Docker from source

Build and run from a cloned repository:

cd docker
docker compose up -d --build

Development mode

Requires uv and Node.js:

cd backend && uv sync      # install Python dependencies
cd ../frontend && npm ci    # install Node dependencies
cd ..
./dev.sh                    # starts backend + frontend with hot-reload

Services

All three options expose the same endpoints:

Service	Pre-built / Docker	Development
UI	http://localhost:3000	http://localhost:5173
REST API	http://localhost:8000/api	http://localhost:8000/api
MCP Server	http://localhost:8000/mcp	http://localhost:8000/mcp

See docs/releasing.md for Makefile targets, CI workflow, and configuration reference.

Claude Code Plugin

DocFabric ships a Claude Code plugin for operations that require local filesystem access, which the read-only MCP server cannot provide. Install it from this repository's marketplace:

claude plugin marketplace add rawe/docfabric
claude plugin install docfabric@docfabric-marketplace

This adds the /docfabric:docfabric skill, which lets Claude manage documents between your local filesystem and DocFabric on your behalf.

Documentation

See docs/index.md for the full documentation index, including PRD, architecture, API contracts, and setup instructions.