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MCP Local RAG MCP Server

local only

MCP Local RAG runs on your own machine — the client starts it, so there is no endpoint to ping. 4 655 installs a week from npm. Last commit 18 Sep 2026.

Easy-to-setup local RAG server with minimal configuration

Installs per day peak 1 074 · avg 443 · +60% w/w
a month agotoday
4 655
Installs / week
npm · mcp-local-rag
398
Stars
1 open issues
18 Sep 2026
Last commit
0 releases in 90 days
MIT
License
TypeScript

Nothing serious here today

Today is the operative word: we check MCP Local RAG every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.

Three servers free · no card

Connect this server

This server runs on your own machine — install it with the package manager and the client starts it for you. Package name taken from the official registry entry.

run in your terminal
claude mcp add mcp-local-rag -- npx -y mcp-local-rag
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-local-rag": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-local-rag"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}
~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.mcp-local-rag]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "mcp-local-rag"]
.cursor/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-local-rag": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-local-rag"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}
.vscode/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-local-rag": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-local-rag"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}

This one needs environment variables set before it will start: BASE_DIR (Base directory for document storage (defaults to current working directory). Ignored when BASE_DIRS is set.), BASE_DIRS (JSON array of base directories (e.g. '["/a","/b"]'). Takes precedence over BASE_DIR.), DB_PATH (Path to LanceDB database directory (defaults to ./lancedb/)), CACHE_DIR (Directory where Transformers.js models are cached (defaults to ./models/)), HF_ENDPOINT (Hugging Face model download endpoint. Set this to a mirror URL when direct downloads are blocked (defaults to https://huggingface.co).), MODEL_NAME (Embedding model name (defaults to Xenova/all-MiniLM-L6-v2)), MAX_FILE_SIZE (Maximum file size in bytes (defaults to 104857600 / 100MB)), RAG_MAX_DISTANCE (Maximum distance threshold for filtering search results. Results with distance greater than this value will be excluded. Lower values mean stricter filtering (e.g., 0.5 for high relevance only)), RAG_GROUPING (Grouping mode for quality filtering. 'similar' returns only the most similar group (stops at first distance jump). 'related' includes related groups (stops at second distance jump). Unset means no grouping filter), RAG_MAX_FILES (Maximum number of files to keep in search results. Results are filtered to include only chunks from the top N best-scoring files. For example, 1 returns only the single best-matching file's chunks. Unset means no file filtering.), CHUNK_MIN_LENGTH (Minimum chunk length in characters (1-10000, defaults to 50). Chunks shorter than this threshold are filtered out during ingestion.), STORE_IMAGES (Store supported PDF and DOCX images during ingestion and return them with matched chunks (defaults to false).), RAG_DEVICE (Execution device for the embedder (defaults to cpu). Passed straight to ONNX Runtime; see the Transformers.js device source for the supported backend names. If the requested device fails to initialize, the server throws an error.), RAG_DTYPE (Embedding quantization dtype for the embedder (defaults to fp32). Opt-in and pass-through; accepts any dtype the chosen model provides (fp32, fp16, q8, int8, ...). If the model has no variant for the requested dtype, the server throws an error. Changing this changes the embedding space — re-ingest existing data.), RAG_HYBRID_WEIGHT (Keyword boost factor for hybrid search (0.0-1.0, defaults to 0.6). 0 means semantic similarity only; higher values increase the keyword-match contribution to the final score.). The author declared them in the registry entry; get the values from the project itself.

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MCP Local RAG — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

Why is there no uptime for MCP Local RAG?
MCP Local RAG runs on your own machine over stdio — there is no network address to reach, so uptime cannot be measured for it by anyone. What can be measured is adoption: the npm package mcp-local-rag was installed 4 655 times last week.
How do I connect MCP Local RAG?
Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It runs locally, so the command pulls mcp-local-rag straight from npm; nothing to host, nothing to sign up for.
How many people use MCP Local RAG?
The npm package mcp-local-rag was installed 4 655 times in the last week. Week over week that is +60%. We show installs rather than GitHub stars on purpose: a star is a bookmark, an install is someone actually running it.
Is MCP Local RAG open source?
Yes — it is published under the MIT licence, written in TypeScript, 398 stars on GitHub and 1 open issue. The source link is on this page, so you can read exactly what it does with your data before you connect it.