Unstructured UNS MCP — Install & Live Demo

Why use it

Key features

60+ source connectors (S3, Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint, GCS)
Document partitioning into elements (Title, Table, NarrativeText, ListItem)
Built-in chunkers (by_title, basic)
Embeddings via OpenAI, Voyage, or local models
Targets: vector DBs (Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant) or warehouses

Live Demo

What it looks like in practice

unstructured-uns-mcp.replay ▶ ready

0/0

Install

Pick your client

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json · Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unstructured-uns-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "uns-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Open Claude Desktop → Settings → Developer → Edit Config. Restart after saving.

~/.cursor/mcp.json · .cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unstructured-uns-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "uns-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Cursor uses the same mcpServers schema as Claude Desktop. Project config wins over global.

VS Code → Cline → MCP Servers → Edit

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unstructured-uns-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "uns-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Click the MCP Servers icon in the Cline sidebar, then "Edit Configuration".

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unstructured-uns-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "uns-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Same shape as Claude Desktop. Restart Windsurf to pick up changes.

~/.continue/config.json

{
  "mcpServers": [
    {
      "name": "unstructured-uns-mcp",
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "uns-mcp"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Continue uses an array of server objects rather than a map.

~/.config/zed/settings.json

{
  "context_servers": {
    "unstructured-uns-mcp": {
      "command": {
        "path": "uvx",
        "args": [
          "uns-mcp"
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Add to context_servers. Zed hot-reloads on save.

claude mcp add unstructured-uns-mcp -- uvx uns-mcp

One-liner. Verify with claude mcp list. Remove with claude mcp remove.

Use Cases

Real-world ways to use Unstructured UNS MCP

Stand up a RAG pipeline from a SharePoint folder to Pinecone

👤 Data engineers / RAG builders ⏱ ~15 min intermediate

When to use: You have a corporate doc dump and want a Claude-queryable index.

Prerequisites

Server/skill installed and authenticated — See repo README

Flow

Define the pipeline

Create an Unstructured pipeline: source SharePoint folder X, partition by_title with 1024 token max, embed with text-embedding-3-small, target Pinecone index 'corp-docs'.✓ Copied

→ Pipeline id
Run and monitor

Run it and tell me when it's done. Report any failed documents.✓ Copied

→ Status updates + final summary

Outcome: Production-grade ingest with proper chunking — not naive PDF text dumps.

Pitfalls

Default chunkers can split tables across chunks. For dense tabular docs, use 'by_title' with combine_text_under_n_chars. — Default chunkers can split tables across chunks. For dense tabular docs, use 'by_title' with combine_text_under_n_chars.

Combine with: filesystem · qdrant-mcp-server

Combinations

Pair with other MCPs for X10 leverage

unstructured-uns-mcp + filesystem

Pair with filesystem for complementary capabilities

Use this server together with filesystem to complete a multi-step task.✓ Copied

unstructured-uns-mcp + qdrant-mcp-server

Pair with qdrant-mcp-server for complementary capabilities

Use this server together with qdrant-mcp-server to complete a multi-step task.✓ Copied

Tools

What this MCP exposes

Tool	Inputs	When to call	Cost
create_pipeline	source, dest, partition_args, chunk_args	Define a new ingest job	1 API call
run_pipeline	pipeline_id	Execute the pipeline	Per Unstructured plan
list_workflows	(none)	See all configured workflows	1 API call

Cost & Limits

What this costs to run

API quota: See provider docs for rate limits
Tokens per call: Varies by tool
Monetary: See repo README for pricing details
Tip: Cache tool results and avoid repeated identical calls.

Security

Permissions, secrets, blast radius

Credential storage: Use environment variables; never commit secrets

Data egress: Tool calls go to the provider's API as documented

Troubleshooting

Common errors and fixes

401 Unauthorized

Get an API key at unstructured.io → Settings → API keys; set UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY and UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL.

Verify: list_workflows returns at least one

source connector auth failure

Connector creds (e.g. SharePoint app token) are configured per-source. Recreate the source via Unstructured UI to refresh.

Verify: Run a 1-file test pipeline first

Alternatives

Unstructured UNS MCP vs others

Alternative	When to use it instead	Tradeoff
LlamaIndex / llamacloud	You want a managed RAG-as-a-service product	Higher-level but less control over chunking

More

Resources

📖 Read the official README on GitHub

🐙 Browse open issues

🔍 Browse all 400+ MCP servers and Skills