About File Analysis MCP Server
A file and data analysis MCP server for people working with local documents and CSVs. It combines file operations, PDF text extraction, statistics, visualizations, and analysis prompts, with access restricted to approved directories.
Key features
- 01Read and write text files
- 02List files and inspect metadata
- 03Extract text from PDFs
- 04Sample and analyze CSV data
- 05Create bar, line, scatter, histogram, and box plots
- 06Prompts for analysis, cleaning, and summaries
Use cases
- 01Inspect files in approved directories
- 02Extract selected pages from a PDF
- 03Analyze CSV statistics and data issues
- 04Create charts or prepare a summary report
MCP support
Exposes file, PDF, CSV analysis, visualization, and prompt capabilities to MCP clients. Directory access is limited to configured allowed paths.
Configuration
Local server config is the same for every client. Copy it into your client’s MCP config file.
We haven’t collected a package or remote endpoint for this server. Follow the instructions in the project README.
Tools
Local servers expose tools only once running on your machine, and the maintainer has not provided a tool list.
Details
From the project READMEFile Analysis MCP Server
This Model Context Protocol (MCP) server provides tools for reading and writing files, analyzing data (especially CSV files), generating visualizations, and reading PDF files - all accessible to any MCP client like Claude Desktop.
Features
File Operations
- Read and write text files securely
- List files in directories matching patterns
- Get detailed file information (size, creation time, etc.)
- Extract text content from PDF files
Data Analysis
- Read and sample CSV files
- Analyze CSV data with detailed statistics
- Visualize data with various plot types (bar, line, scatter, histogram, boxplot)
Included Prompts
- Analyze Data File - Comprehensive data analysis
- Data Cleaning Steps - Identifying and fixing data issues
- Generate Summary Report - Executive summary for stakeholders
- Exploratory Data Analysis - Detailed EDA workflow
Installation
Prerequisites
- Python 3.10 or higher
- Claude Desktop or another MCP client
Setup
- Install dependencies:
pip install "mcp[cli]" pandas numpy matplotlib PyPDF2
- Set up safe directories (optional):
# Default directories are ~/Documents and ~/Downloads
# To customize, set this environment variable:
export MCP_FILE_ROOTS="~/Documents:~/Desktop:~/Downloads"
- Install in Claude Desktop:
mcp install file_analysis_server.py
Usage with Claude Desktop
Once installed, you can ask Claude questions like:
- "Can you list the files in my Documents folder?"
- "Read the content of ~/Documents/example.txt for me"
- "Extract text from my ~/Documents/report.pdf file"
- "Read page 5 of my PDF document"
- "Analyze the data in ~/Downloads/sample.csv"
- "Create a bar chart of the 'Sales' column from my CSV file"
- "Write a summary report of my quarterly_sales.csv file"
Security
The server enforces strict path validation to ensure only files within authorized directories can be accessed. By default, these are limited to ~/Documents and ~/Downloads.
Configuration
You can adjust the allowed directories by setting the MCP_FILE_ROOTS environment variable. Multiple directories should be separated by colons, for example:
mcp install file_analysis_server.py -v MCP_FILE_ROOTS="~/Documents:~/Desktop:~/projects/data"
Development
For development and testing:
mcp dev file_analysis_server.py
This will start the server with the MCP Inspector interface for interactive testing.
Examples
Reading a file
Could you read the content of ~/Documents/notes.txt?
Reading a PDF file
Can you extract the text from ~/Documents/report.pdf?
Reading specific pages from a PDF
Please read pages 3 and 5 from ~/Downloads/manual.pdf
Analyzing CSV data
I have a CSV file at ~/Downloads/sales_data.csv. Could you analyze it and tell me about the 'Revenue' column?
Creating a visualization
Using my ~/Documents/monthly_data.csv file, can you create a bar chart showing 'Month' vs 'Profit'?
Using prompts
Can you run an exploratory data analysis on ~/Downloads/customer_data.csv?
Comments
New to MCP?
From what the protocol is to installing your first server, these answers cover most first questions.
An open protocol that defines how AI applications connect to external tools and data in a uniform way. Clients talk to the model; MCP servers provide tools, resources and prompt templates. They exchange standard messages, so one server can be reused by many clients.