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ra-mcp

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A Model Context Protocol server and CLI for searching and browsing transcribed historical documents from the Swedish National Archives (Riksarkivet). Provides full-text search across millions of AI-transcribed pages, complete page transcriptions, handwritten text recognition, interactive document viewing, and archival research guides — all as MCP tools that any LLM client can use.

Quick Start (MCP)

Streamable HTTP — works with ChatGPT, Claude, and any MCP-compatible client:

https://riksarkivet-ra-mcp.hf.space/mcp

Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http ra-mcp https://riksarkivet-ra-mcp.hf.space/mcp

IDE (mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ra-mcp": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://riksarkivet-ra-mcp.hf.space/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude.ai (web & desktop) — no install: it's a remote server, so add it as a custom connector by URL. Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste https://riksarkivet-ra-mcp.hf.space/mcp → Add. The ra-mcp tools then appear in new chats. (Requires a plan with custom connectors: Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise.)

ChatGPT (Pro/Business/Enterprise): Settings → Connectors (or enable Developer mode) → add a connector pointing at the same URL. See OpenAI's connector docs for the current flow.

The interactive document / PDF viewers are MCP App UIs — they render inline only in clients that support MCP UI resources (e.g. Claude). Other clients still get all the text/search/browse tools; they just won't embed the viewer.

The .claude/ skills and the plugins/ra-mcp-tools plugin are Claude Code add-ons (/install-plugin AI-Riksarkivet/ra-mcp plugins/ra-mcp-tools). They aren't used by claude.ai or ChatGPT, which call the MCP tools directly.

Quick Start (CLI)

The ra command imports the search, browse, and TUI sub-apps unconditionally, so install the cli and tui extras to get a working CLI:

uv pip install "ra-mcp[cli,tui]"

# Search transcribed documents
ra search "trolldom"
ra search "((Stockholm OR Göteborg) AND troll*)"

# Browse specific pages
ra browse "SE/RA/310187/1" --pages "7,8,52" --search-term "trolldom"

# Interactive terminal browser
ra tui "trolldom"

Documentation

For architecture, development setup, deployment, tool reference, CLI reference, and more:

ai-riksarkivet.github.io/ra-mcp

License

Apache 2.0