precis-mcp

A Model Context Protocol server that gives language-model agents a small, uniform API for reading, writing, and searching across papers, documents, personal state, code, and cached tool calls. Small-model-friendly (7B-class agents are the design target); stores content in PostgreSQL with pgvector.

Status. Actively developed on the v8 line. There is no CHANGELOG — git log is the change story. The kinds catalogue below is a living set: the authoritative, build-specific enumeration is always get(kind='skill', id='precis-help') against a running server (it introspects the live registry), paired with get(kind='skill', id='precis-overview') for the guided tour. Agents should start at precis-toolpath-help ("I want to X — what do I call?").

What it does

One tool surface — seven verbs discriminated by a single kind= argument — over three categories of content. Ref kinds are addressed by slug or integer id (output hands you a compact <2-char><id> handle, e.g. pa5 a paper, me42 a memory); tool kinds take q= or id= and hand back text.

• Reading & reference — paper (ingested research PDF), patent (EPO OPS record), cfp (call-for-proposal / spec doc), oracle (curated wisdom entry), conv (past conversation), pres (slide deck), skill (agent how-to — you're reading one).
• Files under PRECIS_ROOT / code — markdown, plaintext, tex, and python (symbol- and callgraph-aware repo navigator).
• Authored artifacts — draft (chunk-native document that exports to LaTeX/PDF/Word; ADR 0033), cad (parametric solid-model design probed analytically, not meshed; ADR 0041), structure (atomistic cell + bond graph for DFT/molecular work; ADR 0043), pcb (netlist + placement graph → BOM/CPL/DSN + Freerouting; ADR 0042), folder (organizational container for the above; ADR 0045).
• Personal state & knowledge — todo (hierarchical task tree), memory, gripe, anki (spaced-repetition cloze cards → AnkiWeb), citation (verified claim → source quote), finding (chain-of-evidence over a citation chase), job (offline LLM run, child of a todo).
• Identity, comms & audit — orcid (researcher-identity hub; ADR 0039), cron (push-notification scheduler; ADR 0030), message (proactive outbound), alert (machine-detected ops condition), agentlog (per-run attribution trail), provenance (derivation audit).
• Tool kinds (stateless or cache-backed) — calc (local SymPy), math (Wolfram), youtube (transcript), web (fetch + extract), wikipedia (on-demand article), websearch / perplexity-reasoning / perplexity-research (Perplexity Sonar tiers).
• Discovery — random: pick a random indexed block to stumble into content when you don't know what to ask for.

The active set depends on which optional extras and env vars are configured (see Install) — a kind whose dependency or env var is missing simply drops off the surface. This list is a snapshot; get(kind='skill', id='precis-help') enumerates the kinds wired in your build, and get(kind='skill', id='precis-overview') gives the design-rationale tour with an example handle per kind.

Seven verbs

Verb	Use when
get	You know the name (slug, id, file path) — or you're calling a tool.
search	You're looking