FastMCP LaTeX Server (tex-mcp)

A small FastMCP-based Microservice that renders LaTeX to PDF. The server exposes MCP tools to render raw LaTeX or templates and produces artifacts (a .tex file and .pdf) under src/artifacts/.

This repository is prepared to run locally and to be loaded by Claude Desktop (via the Model Context Protocol). The default entrypoint is run_server.py.

Demo

Quick features

• Render raw LaTeX to .tex and (optionally) .pdf using pdflatex
• Render Jinja2 templates and compile to PDF
• Designed to run as an MCP server for Claude Desktop and other MCP-capable clients

Tools exposed by this MCP server

• Total tools: 5
  • render_latex_document — write LaTeX and optionally compile to PDF
  • render_template_document — render a Jinja2 template and optionally compile
  • list_templates — list available templates
  • list_artifacts — list files produced in src/artifacts/
  • get_template — return the raw contents of a template file so clients can inspect it before rendering

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Getting started (local development)

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+ (the project uses modern pydantic/fastapi stack)
• LaTeX toolchain (pdflatex) for PDF compilation (optional; if missing, server returns .tex only)

1. Create a project virtualenv and install deps

Clone from GitHub

If you want to work from the canonical repository on GitHub, clone it first:

git clone https://github.com/devroopsaha744/TexMCP.git
cd TexMCP

After cloning you can follow the venv creation and install steps below.

python -m venv .venv
. .\\.venv\\Scripts\\Activate.ps1
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Run the server directly (stdio mode - used by Claude Desktop)

. .\\.venv\\Scripts\\Activate.ps1
python .\\run_server.py
# or run the venv python explicitly if you don't activate
.# .venv\\Scripts\\python.exe run_server.py

If run in stdio mode the server will speak MCP over stdin/stdout (this is what Claude Desktop expects when it spawns the process). If you prefer HTTP, edit run_server.py and switch the transport to http (see commented code) and run via uv run or uvicorn.

3. Artifacts

Rendered outputs are placed in src/artifacts/. For each job you should see a .tex file and — if pdflatex is available — a matching .pdf.

Templates