RAGSync MCP Server

Features

• Broad source support — index local folders (text, PDF, Markdown) and web pages; not limited to a single file type or format
• Config-driven — one YAML file defines sources, chunking strategy, embedding model, and vector store; no code required
• Live reload — filesystem watching and polling keep the index current as sources change; editing the config itself applies changes without a restart
• Flexible embeddings — local fastembed works out of the box with no API key; swap in OpenAI or Voyage per source
• Stable MCP tool surface — five source-agnostic tools (search, list_sources, get_document, get_index_status, reindex) that never change as sources are added

Installation

The fastest way is with uvx — no clone or install step:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ragsync": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["ragsync", "--config", "/abs/path/to/config.yaml"]
    }
  }
}

Add this to your MCP client config:

Paths inside the config are resolved against the config file's directory (not the client's working directory), so a config can live in the repo and reference repo content with relative paths like path: ./docs. Give --config itself an absolute path, though — the client chooses where it launches the server from, so that's the one path it must be able to find unambiguously.

Pin a version with "[email protected]" if you want reproducible launches. (If the client can't find uvx on its PATH, use the absolute path to the uvx binary — which uvx.)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ragsync": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--directory",
        "/abs/path/to/ragsync-mcp",
        "ragsync",
        "--config",
        "/abs/path/to/ragsync-mcp/examples/config.example.yaml"
      ]
    }
  }
}

uv tool install ragsync        # from PyPI; or a local path to a clone

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ragsync": {
      "command": "ragsync",
      "args": ["--config", "/abs/path/to/config.yaml"]
    }
  }
}

Hosted embedding keys

For openai/voyage sources, the config names an env var (api_key_env) rather than the key itself. Provide that variable to the subprocess via env:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ragsync": {
      "command": "ragsync",
      "args": ["--config", "/abs/path/to/config.yaml"],
      "env": { "OPENAI_API_KEY": "sk-..." }
    }
  }
}

After saving, restart/reload the client. It will list the five tools (search, list_sources, get_document, get_index_status, reindex); the agent calls search to answer questions from your indexed sources. First launch downloads the local embedding model, so initial startup can take a little longer.

Configuration

A single YAML file defines global defaults and a list of sources. Each source becomes one searchable collection with its own loader, chunking, embedding model, vector-store collection, and watcher. Per-source isolation lets different sources use different embedding models safely.

defaults:
  chunking:
    strategy: recursive_character
    chunk_size: 800
    chunk_overlap: 100
  embedding:
    provider: fastembed
    model: BAAI/bge-small-en-v1.5 }
  vector_store:
    backend: chroma
    persist_directory: ./vector_db

sources:
  - name: product-docs
    type: folder
    description: Product documentation and how-to guides.
    connection:
      path: ./docs # relative to the config file's directory
      include: ["**/*.md"]
      exclude: ["**/internal/**"]
    watch:
      enabled: true
      mode: filesystem
    chunking:
      strategy: markdown
      chunk_size: 1000
      chunk_overlap: 150
    vector_store:
      collection: product_docs
    metadata:
      product: example
      audience: public

The examples/ directory has runnable configs:

• config.example.yaml — a complete multi-source example (pointed at the sample content under examples/docs and examples/playbooks).
• folder.yaml — a single folder source.
• website.yaml — a single website source.

Source types

Include/exclude globs use gitignore-style matching (e.g. **/internal/**).

Embedding providers

fastembed (local, default), openai, and voyage (hosted). Hosted providers read their API key from the environment variable named by api_key_env — keys are never written into config.

MCP tools

Five tools, deliberately small and source-agnostic. They never change as sources are added:

• search — semantic search across one or all sources, with optional metadata filtering. Returns results with normalized [0, 1] scores.
• list_sources — discover available sources and their health/metadata.
• get_document — fetch a full document after search surfaces a chunk.
• get_index_status — indexing freshness/health for one source or all.
• reindex — force a full re-scan of a source.

Tools return structured {"error": "..."} objects rather than raising, so the calling agent can recover conversationally.

Access scoping

Per-source isolation is a security boundary: scope access by running separate server instances with separate configs. There is no cross-instance "search everything" path.

Development

uv sync --extra dev          # install test dependencies
uv run pytest

Tests run fully offline by injecting a deterministic embedder in place of fastembed (see tests/conftest.py). The architecture and extension contract — how to add a new source type — are documented in AGENTS.md.

Releasing

Releases are automated from Conventional Commits. CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml) runs the test suite on every pull request. On merge to main, the release workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) runs the tests again, then python-semantic-release inspects the commits since the last tag and decides the next version:

When there is a releasable change it bumps version in pyproject.toml, updates CHANGELOG.md, tags the commit, creates a GitHub release, and publishes the package to PyPI. Once published, anyone can run it with uvx ragsync --config <path> (or pip install ragsync).