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name: calibre-mcp description: Search, read, and safely curate a Calibre ebook library through the calibre-mcp server. Use for finding books, metadata/full-text/semantic search, reading excerpts or chapter maps, listing figures and categories, auditing metadata quality, finding duplicates, building search indexes, or previewing gated library maintenance. Trigger on Calibre, ebook library, find a book, search inside a book, read a chapter, book metadata, duplicates, library cleanup, or semantic book search.

Calibre MCP operations

Prefer the calibre_* MCP tools. This plugin connects to http://localhost:8080 and exposes write tools because the user explicitly enabled them. Keep every mutation preview-first and narrowly scoped.

Hard rules

• Discover libraries with calibre_list_libraries; never assume names, IDs, or paths.
• Start with calibre_ping when connectivity is uncertain.
• Use metadata search for known fields, full-text search for exact wording, and semantic search for concepts. If semantic search is unavailable or incomplete, build a scoped index first.
• Call calibre_get_content with structure: true before walking a long book. Read bounded chunks and preserve returned cursors only within the current extraction context.
• Do not access a live library database directly while the Calibre GUI is open. Route library work through the Content Server.
• CALIBRE_MCP_ENABLE_WRITE=1 reflects explicit user authorization to expose write tools. Actual modifications also require the Calibre Content Server to allow local write access.
• Preview bulk, merge, remove, ISBN, and bundle operations before applying them and obtain confirmation for destructive changes.

Tool routing

Need	Tool/path
Connection check	calibre_ping
Find by title/author/tag/query	calibre_search, mode: meta
Exact words in books	calibre_search, mode: fts
Meaning-based discovery	calibre_semantic_search
Book metadata and formats	calibre_get_book
Outline or excerpts	calibre_get_content
Figures and illustrations	calibre_get_figures
Tags/authors/series schema	calibre_list_categories
Duplicate or quality audit	calibre_find_duplicates, calibre_quality_report
Metadata proposal	calibre_recover_metadata, calibre_extract_isbn
Search index	calibre_build_index

For book hierarchy or TOC/spine analysis, use $calibre-analyze-book-structure. For Calibre conversion selectors or EPUB package queries, use $calibre-write-xpath.

Search sequence

1. Resolve a likely book with a small metadata search.
2. Confirm the record and formats.
3. Search inside the selected book with FTS or semantic scope.
4. Retrieve only the passages needed for the task.
5. Cite book identity and stable locations returned by the server; do not dump long copyrighted passages.

Local CLI escape hatch

Use Calibre CLI only for file-level conversion/export or operations not exposed by MCP. If the GUI is running, use the Content Server library URL for calibredb rather than --library-path. ebook-convert input output is file-level and can operate on a copy without opening the library DB.