Paper Design Assistant

Discover and call selected Paper Design tools from a local stdio MCP server.

Included workflow

• Discover the installed Paper version's tools, schemas, and server instructions.
• Allow selected upstream tools by exact name on the server.
• Forward allowed design operations through xmcp/client, preserving results and errors.

Install Paper Desktop, open a design file, and copy the absolute Paper CLI path from its MCP panel into PAPER_COMMAND. Leave PAPER_ALLOWED_TOOLS empty until you have inspected discovery results. Empty denies all delegated calls. Paper operations act on the current file; verify it before writes.

Run locally

Use Node 22 and pnpm. This starter lives in the xmcp workspace; run these commands from the repository root:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/basementstudio/xmcp.git
cd xmcp
pnpm install
pnpm exec turbo run build --filter=xmcp --filter=@xmcp-dev/compiler
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
cp examples/paper-stdio/.env.example examples/paper-stdio/.env

Configure examples/paper-stdio/.env with PAPER_COMMAND, PAPER_ALLOWED_TOOLS.

pnpm --filter paper-stdio build

Configure a local MCP client with absolute paths:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "xmcp-paper": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "--env-file=/absolute/path/to/xmcp/examples/paper-stdio/.env",
        "/absolute/path/to/xmcp/examples/paper-stdio/dist/stdio.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Use an absolute Node 22 executable path if your client cannot find node. Call list-paper-tools with {}, read the returned server instructions and schemas, then set PAPER_ALLOWED_TOOLS to the exact tool names needed. Restart the server after changing .env. Call call-paper-tool with name and arguments matching discovery. Enabled design tools can edit or delete content. This starter requires a local Paper Desktop session and has no hosted HTTP endpoint.

Validate and customize

pnpm --filter paper-stdio typecheck
pnpm --filter paper-stdio test

Tests use a fake MCP subprocess and never modify a real Paper file. Add or adapt tools in examples/paper-stdio/src/tools/.

• Integration guide
• Complete setup and tool reference