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Local Installation

If you want to search and browse directly from your terminal (no AI client needed), or run your own server instance.

Install the CLI

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

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

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

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

Interactive TUI

The TUI ships in the tui extra (already included above). If you only want the terminal browser:

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

ra tui                # Launch empty
ra tui "trolldom"     # Launch with pre-filled search

The TUI provides keyboard-driven search, document browsing, and page viewing. Press ? for keybindings help.

See CLI Reference for full command documentation.

Run Your Own Server

For development or private deployments:

# Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/AI-Riksarkivet/ra-mcp.git
cd ra-mcp
uv sync

# Build the viewer-mcp and pdf-mcp App UIs (required before serving, or the MCP App UIs won't be built)
make build-ui

# Run MCP server on HTTP
uv run ra serve --port 7860

# Then connect to it
claude mcp add --transport http ra-mcp http://localhost:7860/mcp

Or with Docker:

docker run -p 7860:7860 riksarkivet/ra-mcp

Test with MCP Inspector

For debugging or exploring the tools interactively:

cat > mcp.json <<'EOF'
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ra-mcp": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://riksarkivet-ra-mcp.hf.space/mcp"
    }
  }
}
EOF

npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/inspector --config ./mcp.json

Open http://localhost:6274 in your browser to use the Inspector UI.