Qt4 Doc MCP Server

Qt Documentation MCP Server

mcp-name: io.github.jztan/qt4-doc-mcp-server

Bring locally installed Qt 4.8, Qt 5, or Qt 6 documentation to your AI coding assistant. Works offline with one selected documentation set at a time.

Tool Reference | Changelog | Contributing | Troubleshooting

✨ Features

• 🔌 Offline-First - Works entirely with local documentation
• 🔍 Full-Text Search - Find what you need across all Qt docs
• ⚡ Smart Caching - Fast responses for repeated queries
• 🎯 Fragment Support - Extract specific sections when needed
• 🛠️ MCP Standard - Compatible with Claude, VS Code, and other MCP clients

📦 Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+ required
• Qt HTML Documentation for one supported release (Qt 4.8, Qt 5, or Qt 6)
  • The included helper downloads Qt 4.8.4 only.
  • Point QT_DOC_BASE directly at an existing Qt 5/6 offline documentation root.
• ~500MB disk space for docs + cache + search index
• SQLite with FTS5 support (included in Python 3.11+ by default)

🚀 Installation

From PyPI (Recommended)

pip install qt4-doc-mcp-server

From Source

git clone https://github.com/jztan/qt4-doc-mcp-server.git
cd qt4-doc-mcp-server
uv sync --locked

Setup Qt Documentation

# Automated setup (recommended)
python scripts/prepare_qt48_docs.py --segments 4

# This will:
# - Download Qt 4.8.4 source archive
# - Extract HTML documentation
# - Create .env with sensible defaults
# - Copy GFDL license file

Quick Start Commands

# 1. Install
pip install qt4-doc-mcp-server

# 2. Setup Qt docs
python scripts/prepare_qt48_docs.py --segments 4

# 3. Build search index
qt-doc-build-index

# 4. Start server
qt-doc-mcp

# 5. Verify health
curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8000/health

The legacy qt4-doc-mcp-server command remains available as an alias for existing client configurations.

Agent-friendly FTS CLI

After building the index, agents can search and receive materialized absolute Markdown paths:

qt-doc-cli "accessible applications" --limit 5

The command reads the same .env settings as the server. Before searching, it automatically builds a missing/outdated FTS index and fully warms an incomplete Markdown cache. It then prints each result's title, absolute .md path, and FTS snippet to stdout; preparation messages, errors, and warnings go to stderr. Use qt-doc-warm-md --force after changing documentation in place.

⚙️ Configuration

Create a .env file in the repo root. The helper script writes sensible defaults; adjust as needed:

The tools identify documents by their exact root-relative Markdown path, not an online URL. For example, use qcompleter.md for a Qt 4 page, qtdoc/accessible.md for a Qt 5/6 global page, or qtcore/qobject.md for a Qt 5/6 Core page. By default, each docset stores its own index and Markdown cache under $QT_DOC_BASE/.index/, so switching QT_DOC_BASE reuses its existing derived state. Set QT_DOC_STATE_DIR to relocate both to a writable directory. The Markdown cache mirrors the documentation tree: for example, qtcore/qobject.md is cached as .index/md/qtcore/qobject.md plus qobject.meta.json with the default state directory.

🔌 MCP Client Setup

By default, the server exposes an HTTP endpoint at http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp. Register it with your preferred MCP-compatible agent using the instructions below.

Stdio transport

Run the server over stdio instead of HTTP with:

qt-doc-mcp --transport stdio

For stdio-only MCP clients, configure that command with args: ["--transport", "stdio"]. Startup indexing and Markdown-cache progress are written to stderr, leaving stdout exclusively for MCP protocol messages.

VS Code has built-in MCP support via GitHub Copilot (requires VS Code 1.102+).

Using CLI (Quickest):

code --add-mcp '{"name":"qt-docs","type":"http","url":"http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp"}'

Using Command Palette:

1. Open Command Palette (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P)
2. Run MCP: Open User Configuration (for global) or MCP: Open Workspace Folder Configuration (for project-specific)
3. Add the configuration:

   {
     "servers": {
       "qt-docs": {
         "type": "http",
         "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp"
       }
     }
   }
   

4. Save the file. VS Code will automatically load the MCP server.

Manual Configuration: Create .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace (or mcp.json in your user profile directory):

{
  "servers": {
    "qt-docs": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Add to Claude Code using the CLI command:

claude mcp add --transport http qt-docs http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp

Or configure manually in your Claude Code settings file (~/.claude.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "qt-docs": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Add to Codex CLI using the command:

codex mcp add qt-docs -- npx -y mcp-client-http http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp

Or configure manually in ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.qt-docs]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "mcp-client-http", "http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp"]

Note: Codex CLI primarily supports stdio-based MCP servers. The above uses mcp-client-http as a bridge for HTTP transport.

Kiro primarily supports stdio-based MCP servers. For HTTP servers, use an HTTP-to-stdio bridge:

1. Create or edit .kiro/settings/mcp.json in your workspace:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "qt-docs": {
         "command": "npx",
         "args": [
           "-y",
           "mcp-client-http",
           "http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp"
         ],
         "disabled": false
       }
     }
   }
   

2. Save the file and restart Kiro. The active Qt documentation tools will appear in the MCP panel.

Note: Direct HTTP transport support in Kiro is limited. The above configuration uses mcp-client-http as a bridge to connect to HTTP MCP servers.

Most MCP clients use a standard configuration format. For HTTP servers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "qt-docs": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

For clients that require a command-based approach with HTTP bridge:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "qt-docs": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-client-http", "http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

🛠️ Available Tools

The server provides 2 MCP tools for working with the active local Qt documentation set:

1. read_documentation - Read and convert pages from the active Qt documentation set to Markdown

   • Fragment extraction (#details, #public-functions)
   • Pagination with start_index and max_length
   • Section-only mode for targeted content
   • Returns Markdown with normalized links and GFDL attribution

2. search_documentation - Full-text search across the active Qt documentation set

   • SQLite FTS5 with BM25 relevance ranking
   • Context snippets with highlighted matches
   • Configurable result limits (default: 10, max: 50)

For detailed API documentation including parameters, return values, examples, and error handling, see the Tool Reference.

📚 Related Resources

• Model Context Protocol Specification
• Qt Documentation
• FastMCP Framework
• Tool Reference
• Changelog
• Contributing Guide
• Troubleshooting Guide

📄 License

• Code: MIT License (see LICENSE).
• Qt Documentation: © The Qt Company Ltd. and contributors, licensed under GFDL 1.3. This server converts locally obtained docs and includes attribution in outputs. If you redistribute a local mirror, include LICENSE.FDL and preserve notices.
• See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md for more details.