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DECIMER MCP Server

  • Updated April 13, 2026
  • DocMinus/DecimerMCPServer

DECIMER MCP Server is an MCP server that performs DECIMER image-to-SMILES chemical structure recognition for AI agents.

About

DECIMER MCP Server connects MCP hosts to the DECIMER model so agents can convert chemical structure images into SMILES notation. developers in cheminformatics, biotech side projects, or education tech use it when OCR on diagrams is unreliable and they need a dedicated structure recognizer inside an automated pipeline. Installation is stdio through uvx on the published PyPI identifier without extra env vars in the published manifest. Expect intermediate complexity around Python tooling and validating SMILES downstream in RDKit or similar. The audience is narrow compared to general dev MCP servers. Skillselion files it under build integrations for research-oriented agents that must ingest structure images as machine-readable chemistry.

  • DECIMER image-to-SMILES chemical structure recognition exposed over MCP
  • Python package decimer-mcp-server 0.1.4 via uvx on PyPI
  • Stdio transport for chemistry-aware agent workflows
  • Useful for digitizing diagrams from papers, slides, or lab scans

DECIMER MCP Server by the numbers

  • Data as of Jul 7, 2026 (Skillselion catalog sync)
terminal
claude mcp add decimer-mcp-server -- uvx decimer-mcp-server

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Listed on Skillselion
Packagedecimer-mcp-server
TransportSTDIO
AuthNone
Last updatedApril 13, 2026
RepositoryDocMinus/DecimerMCPServer

What it does

Turn chemical structure images into SMILES strings through DECIMER from your agent for cheminformatics notebooks, lab tooling, or research assistants.

Who is it for?

Best when you're automating chemistry research workflows, structure digitization, or edu tooling with MCP and Python uvx.

Skip if: General OCR needs, non-chemistry document parsing, or teams without Python/uvx tolerance on the agent machine.

What you get

With decimer-mcp-server on stdio, the agent returns SMILES strings from structure images for downstream cheminformatics scripts.

  • SMILES strings extracted from chemical structure images via MCP
  • Agent-ready cheminformatics recognition step in larger pipelines

By the numbers

  • Published version 0.1.4 on PyPI
  • Stdio transport with uvx runtimeHint per server schema
README.md

DecimerMCPServer

mcp-name: io.github.DocMinus/decimer-mcp-server

MCP server that exposes DECIMER image-to-SMILES functionality as tool calls.

This project is a thin adapter over the existing FastAPI service in DecimerServerAPI. It does not run DECIMER models directly. The adapter sends JSON requests by default, with automatic fallback to form payloads for compatibility.

Tools

  • server_health: Checks whether the DECIMER FastAPI server is reachable.
  • analyze_chemical_image: Sends a base64-encoded image to /image2smiles/ and returns structured output.

Requirements

  • Python 3.10+
  • Running DECIMER API server (default: http://localhost:8099)

find it at either of these two versions:

Install

cd /Users/a/dev/DecimerMCPServer
uv venv
uv sync

Configuration

Copy .env.example values into your environment:

  • DECIMER_API_BASE_URL (default http://localhost:8099)
  • DECIMER_API_TIMEOUT_SECONDS (default 60)
  • DECIMER_MAX_IMAGE_BYTES (default 10000000)
  • DECIMER_MCP_LOG_LEVEL (default INFO)

Run (stdio transport)

uv run decimer-mcp-server

or

uv run python -m decimer_mcp_server

Example MCP client config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "decimer": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "python", "-m", "decimer_mcp_server"],
      "env": {
        "DECIMER_API_BASE_URL": "http://localhost:8099"
      }
    }
  }
}

Output shape

analyze_chemical_image returns:

{
  "ok": true,
  "smiles": "CCO",
  "reason": null,
  "api_status_code": 200,
  "api_message": null,
  "classifier_score": 0.0000012,
  "classifier_threshold": 0.3,
  "classifier_decision": "structure_like"
}

When no SMILES is returned by API classifier behavior:

{
  "ok": true,
  "smiles": null,
  "reason": "not_chemical_structure",
  "api_status_code": 200,
  "api_message": "No SMILES returned by API",
  "classifier_score": 0.99999,
  "classifier_threshold": 0.3,
  "classifier_decision": "not_structure_like"
}

Development tests

uv sync --extra dev
uv run pytest

Make targets:

make sync
make test

Smoke test helper

Run one health check + one inference call against your DECIMER API:

cd /Users/a/dev/DecimerMCPServer
DECIMER_API_BASE_URL=http://chitchat:8099 uv run decimer-mcp-smoke-test --image /Users/a/dev/DecimerServerAPI/example_usage/structure.png

If you keep settings in .env, load it with:

uv run --env-file .env decimer-mcp-smoke-test --image /Users/a/dev/DecimerServerAPI/example_usage/structure.png

or use make:

make smoke

Override the image path if needed:

make smoke SMOKE_IMAGE=/absolute/path/to/image.png

## MCP Registry publishing

Tags matching `v*` trigger `.github/workflows/publish-mcp.yml`.

Workflow steps:
- installs `mcp-publisher`
- validates `server.json`
- calls registry publish using secret `MCP_REGISTRY_TOKEN`
- publishes slug `io.github.DocMinus/decimer-mcp-server` (case sensitive; must match registry grant)

Before tagging:
1. Update `pyproject.toml` + `server.json` versions
2. Ensure `server.json` stays valid (`uv pip install jsonschema && python validate snippet from AGENTS.md`)
3. Add GitHub repo secret `MCP_REGISTRY_TOKEN` (GitHub PAT with `repo`, `workflow` scopes)

Release flow:
```bash
git tag v0.1.1
git push origin v0.1.1

Monitor Actions tab. If publish fails, rerun using workflow dispatch after fixing issues.


## Contribution
This project was built by DocMinus with AI-assisted coding support (OpenCode/Copilot-style tooling), then reviewed and tested by the author.

## AI usage policy

- AI assistance was used for scaffolding, implementation drafts, and documentation edits.
- Final technical decisions, validation runs, and acceptance were performed by the maintainer.
- Runtime behavior should be validated with local tests (`make test`) and smoke tests (`make smoke`) before release.

Recommended MCP Servers

How it compares

Domain-specific chemistry vision MCP, not a general vision LLM or PDF text extractor.

FAQ

Who is DECIMER MCP Server for?

Developers and researchers building MCP agents that need reliable image-to-SMILES conversion for chemical structures.

When should I use DECIMER MCP Server?

Use it during build when integrating lab, education, or cheminformatics pipelines that ingest structure images.

How do I add DECIMER MCP Server to my agent?

Register stdio MCP with runtimeHint uvx and package decimer-mcp-server 0.1.4 from PyPI, then invoke recognition tools on image inputs.

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