Back to stillPUB For AI agents

Connect an AI agent

stillPUB ships a command line tool that doubles as an MCP server. Point your own AI assistant at it and it can open your .pub files, edit them, and export PDFs, all on your computer. stillPUB has no AI of its own and no API keys: the agent is yours, running under your account.

Four ways to install it — one of them needs nothing at all

Why there is nothing to connect to from this website

A web page cannot host a server, so opening stillpub.com does not put anything on the network for an agent to find. The MCP server is a program that runs on your own machine, and your agent starts it directly. The stillPUB service never receives the document; once you connect an agent, however, that agent can read document content and a cloud agent may transmit it under its provider's terms.

Pick the way that suits you

All four give your agent the same twenty-two tools. They differ only in what has to be on your computer already.

Claude Desktop — no terminal

Download stillpub.mcpb and double-click it. Claude Desktop installs it, brings its own Node, and asks nothing else. There is a checkbox on the install screen for the visual editor; turn it on if you want a stillPUB window open alongside Claude.

Claude Code — one command

/plugin marketplace add parallax-intelligence/stillpub
/plugin install stillpub@stillpub

That brings the tools, a /stillpub:live command for the visual editor, and a skill so Claude already knows the document model. If you would rather add the server on its own:

claude mcp add stillpub -- npx -y stillpub mcp

A download, with nothing installed

No Node, no npm, no package manager. Download the folder for your computer, unzip it, and run it where it lands:

./stillpub app          # the editor, on your own machine
./stillpub app --live   # the editor with an AI session ready
./stillpub help

Keep the folder together: the program reads its fonts, converter and editor from the folders beside it.

npm, if you have Node 20 or newer

npm install -g stillpub
stillpub info ~/Documents/newsletter.pub

Or skip the install entirely — npx -y stillpub fetches it on first use, which is what the configurations below do.

Point your agent at it

Any MCP client can start the server on stdio with npx -y stillpub mcp, or with the path to the downloaded binary and the word mcp. Some specifics:

Claude Desktop, if you would rather edit the config than install the bundle. Add this to claude_desktop_config.json (Settings, Developer, Edit Config), then restart the app:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "stillpub": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "stillpub", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Codex CLI:

codex mcp add stillpub -- npx -y stillpub mcp

Or, for one session only, letting stillPUB wire it up and tear it down:

stillpub claude
stillpub codex

What your agent can do

Twenty-two tools, covering the whole document model: open a .pub or .stillpub file, read its structure, edit text, restyle spans and paragraphs, add and move and resize text boxes, shapes and pictures, crop and border pictures, add and duplicate and delete pages, save, and export a print-quality PDF with fonts embedded. Every edit reports what it did, and every import reports what did not convert.

Watching it work on your open document

The steps above give your agent files on disk. There is a second mode where the agent drives the editor in front of you, so you watch the edits land on the canvas and can undo them like your own.

One command:

stillpub app --live

It opens the editor in your browser, already connected. There is no key to copy and nothing to paste: stillPUB serves the editor from your own machine for this, so the page and the AI session are both local and the browser treats them as one thing. Point your agent at the port it printed, or use the Claude Code plugin's /stillpub:live, which does all of it for you.

Nothing is exposed to the network and no traffic passes through stillpub.com. A fresh key is generated every run, and closing the server or clicking Disconnect ends it.

Before you connect anything, know what you are sharing. An agent with this server attached can read the documents you point it at, including any names, addresses or other personal details inside them. Most AI assistants are cloud services, which means that content goes to whichever company you use, under their terms, not ours. The stillPUB service never sees it; your chosen agent may send it to its provider, and stillPUB cannot take it back for you. Connect an agent you trust with the document in front of you, and use Disconnect when you are done.

Browser support for the live bridge

stillpub app --live works in every browser we have tested, Safari included, because the editor and the AI session both come from your own machine.

Starting from the editor on this website instead is a different story, and worth knowing about if you try it. That page is served over HTTPS while the bridge on your machine is a plain local connection, and browsers have tightened up on that combination:

  • Chrome and Edge: the browser asks your permission first. The connection sits and waits until you allow local network access for stillpub.com. If you dismiss the prompt or never see it, the AI session will just appear to hang.
  • Safari: blocks it outright as insecure content, with no prompt to allow it.

That is the reason stillpub app --live exists, and why it is the path we point people at. None of it affects the rest of stillPUB: opening .pub files, editing and PDF export work the same in every browser, on this site or off it, because they never touch the network at all.

The file-based setup further up has none of these limits either — your agent talks to the command line tool directly, with no browser in the middle.

Working entirely offline

Once installed, the command line tool needs no network at all. Import, edit and PDF export are local, so is the bridge, and so is the editor stillpub app serves: the whole product is in the folder or the package you installed. The only thing that reaches the internet is your agent talking to whatever service it uses.