Alfresco Content Services MCP server for AI agents

The Python Alfresco MCP Server provides a full-featured Model Context Protocol (MCP) interface for Alfresco Content Services, enabling content search, document management, and metadata operations through AI assistants like Claude Desktop or MCP Inspector.

Installation

Prerequisites

Python 3.10+
Alfresco Content Services (Community or Enterprise)

Install Using UV/UVX (Recommended)

UV is a modern Python package manager written in Rust that offers significant speed improvements over traditional methods.

# Install UV (provides both uv and uvx commands)
# Windows
powershell -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

# macOS/Linux  
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Verify installation
uv --version
uvx --version

# Install and run the MCP server
uvx python-alfresco-mcp-server --help

Alternative Installation Methods

Using UV for development:

# Install from PyPI
uv tool install python-alfresco-mcp-server
uv tool run python-alfresco-mcp-server --help

# Or install from source
git clone https://github.com/stevereiner/python-alfresco-mcp-server.git
cd python-alfresco-mcp-server
uv run python-alfresco-mcp-server --help

Configure Alfresco Connection

Using Environment Variables:

# Linux/Mac
export ALFRESCO_URL="http://localhost:8080"
export ALFRESCO_USERNAME="admin"
export ALFRESCO_PASSWORD="admin"
export ALFRESCO_VERIFY_SSL="false"

# Windows PowerShell
$env:ALFRESCO_URL="http://localhost:8080"
$env:ALFRESCO_USERNAME="admin"
$env:ALFRESCO_PASSWORD="admin"
$env:ALFRESCO_VERIFY_SSL="false"

Using a .env file (recommended):

Create a .env file in the same directory where you run the MCP server:

ALFRESCO_URL=http://localhost:8080
ALFRESCO_USERNAME=admin
ALFRESCO_PASSWORD=admin
ALFRESCO_VERIFY_SSL=false

Running the MCP Server

# With STDIO transport (default)
uvx python-alfresco-mcp-server

# With HTTP transport (for web services or MCP Inspector)
uvx python-alfresco-mcp-server --transport http --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8003

# With SSE transport (for real-time streaming)
uvx python-alfresco-mcp-server --transport sse --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8001

MCP Client Setup

Claude Desktop Configuration

The MCP server works with Claude Desktop, providing a natural language interface to Alfresco.

Download Claude Desktop from claude.ai/download
Configure Claude Desktop for UVX installation:

{
  "command": "uvx",
  "args": ["python-alfresco-mcp-server", "--transport", "stdio"]
}

MCP Inspector (For Development/Testing)

Install MCP Inspector:

npm install -g @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

Start the MCP server with HTTP transport:

uvx python-alfresco-mcp-server --transport http --port 8003

Launch MCP Inspector:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector --config mcp-inspector-http-uvx-config.json --server python-alfresco-mcp-server

Available Tools

Search Tools

search_content: Basic content search with wildcards
advanced_search: Advanced search with filters, sorting, and field targeting
search_by_metadata: Property-based queries with comparison operators
cmis_search: SQL-like queries for complex content discovery

Document Management Tools

upload_document: Upload new documents to the repository
download_document: Retrieve document content
checkout_document: Check out documents for editing
checkin_document: Check in documents with version control
cancel_checkout: Cancel document checkout

Repository Management Tools

browse_repository: Navigate repository folders
create_folder: Create new folders
get_node_properties: Retrieve metadata
update_node_properties: Update document/folder properties
delete_node: Delete documents or folders
repository_info: Get repository status and configuration

Usage Examples

Document Management Example

Please create a file called 'test_doc.txt' in the repository shared folder with this content: 'This is a test document created via MCP.' description 'Test document uploaded via MCP'

Search Operations Example

With Alfresco please test basic search for "txt" documents, return max 10

Repository Navigation Example

List docs and folders in shared folder

Configuration Options

Key environment variables include:

ALFRESCO_URL: Alfresco server URL (default: http://localhost:8080)
ALFRESCO_USERNAME: Username for authentication (default: admin)
ALFRESCO_PASSWORD: Password for authentication (default: admin)
ALFRESCO_VERIFY_SSL: Verify SSL certificates (default: false)
MAX_FILE_SIZE: Maximum upload size in bytes (default: 100000000)

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "python-alfresco-mcp-server" '{"command":"python","args":["-m","alfresco_mcp_server.fastmcp_server"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "python-alfresco-mcp-server": {
            "command": "python",
            "args": [
                "-m",
                "alfresco_mcp_server.fastmcp_server"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "python-alfresco-mcp-server": {
            "command": "python",
            "args": [
                "-m",
                "alfresco_mcp_server.fastmcp_server"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect