MarkItDown MCP Server for Zed

This extension integrates MarkItDown as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server for for Zed's Assistant.

for upstream information, check MarkItDown-MCP

What This Extension Does

Turn any Documents into AI Context - Upload or reference any file, and this extension converts it to clean Markdown that AI can understand and work with without Multimodality.

Supported File Types

It exposes one tool: convert_to_markdown(uri), where uri can be any http:, https:, file:, or data: URI.

Category	Formats	AI Use Cases
Documents	PDF, Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx)	Analyze reports, summarize presentations, extract data
Images	JPG, PNG, GIF (with OCR)	Read text from screenshots, analyze charts, describe images
Audio	MP3, WAV (with transcription)	Transcribe meetings, analyze speech content
Web	HTTP/HTTPS URLs	Summarize articles, extract key information
Data	CSV, JSON, XML	Process structured data, generate insights
Archives	ZIP files	Analyze multiple files at once

Quick Start

Installation (BETA)

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/G36maid/zed-mcp-server-markitdown.git
cd zed-mcp-server-markitdown

# Build the extension
cargo build --release

# Add as a dev extension in Zed:
# In Zed, go to Extensions → Install Dev Extension → Select this directory

Usage Examples

Convert a PDF report:

Please analyze this PDF report and summarize the key findings.

Extract data from a spreadsheet:

Convert this Excel file to markdown and show me the top 5 entries.

Analyze a webpage:

Summarize the main points from this article form link in README.

Configuration

Optional Settings

Access through Zed's settings or the Assistant configuration UI:

{
  "context_servers": {
    "mcp-server-markitdown": {
      "settings": {
        "package_version": "latest"
      }
    }
  }
}

• package_version: Specify npm package version (default: "latest")

Prerequisites

• Node.js and npm (automatically handled by Zed)
• Rust (automatically handled by Zed)
• Internet connection (for initial package installation and web calls)

Local Development

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/G36maid/zed-mcp-server-markitdown.git
cd zed-mcp-server-markitdown

# Build the extension
cargo build --release

# Add as a dev extension in Zed:
# In Zed, go to Extensions → Install Dev Extension → Select this directory

Related Projects

• Microsoft MarkItDown - The core conversion tool (Python)
• MarkItDown MCP - Official MCP server
• markitdown-mcp-npx - NPX wrapper used by this extension
• Context7 MCP - Similar Zed MCP extension example

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• Microsoft AutoGen Team for creating MarkItDown
• Zed Industries for the excellent extension platform
• xkiranj for create the npx wrapper for MarkItDown MCP

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Transform your documents into AI-ready context with MarkItDown MCP Server for Zed.