dropscan-mcp

MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for the Dropscan postal-mail-to-email API. Dropscan receives your physical letters at a scanbox; this server lets your MCP client list mailings, download the scans (PDF / ZIP / envelope image / OCR text), and, when explicitly enabled, request actions (scan / forward / destroy) and manage recipients, forwarding addresses and webhook rules.

mcp-name: io.github.bitterdev/dropscan-mcp

Safety first: Dropscan has no sandbox

Every request hits the real production account. Actions are irreversible: a destroyed letter is physically shredded and gone, a forward physically mails the letter and costs money.

Because of that, all write/action tools are gated twice:

1. DROPSCAN_ALLOW_WRITES environment flag. Unless it is set to 1/true/yes, every non-GET tool refuses to run. It is disabled by default.
2. confirm: true parameter. Each write/action tool takes an explicit confirm argument (default false) and refuses unless it is true.

Read-only GET tools are always available and never change state.

Tools

Read-only (always available)

The download tools save the asset to disk (default ~/Downloads, override with save_path or the DROPSCAN_DOWNLOAD_DIR env var) and return the saved path, byte size and content type.

Write / action (double-gated: DROPSCAN_ALLOW_WRITES=1 and confirm=true)

action_type is one of scan, forward, destroy (exact enum from the API). For forward, both forwarding_address_id and forwarding_date (ISO YYYY-MM-DD) are required.

Webhook events: mailing_received, scan_requested, mailing_scanned, mailing_archived, mailing_trashed, mailing_shredded, mailing_added_to_shipment, mailing_removed_from_shipment, shipment_sent, package_tracking_updated.

Requirements

• Python >= 3.10
• A Dropscan personal access token

Installation

From a local clone:

python3 -m venv .venv
./.venv/bin/pip install .

Configuration

The token is read from the DROPSCAN_TOKEN environment variable and sent as Authorization: Bearer <token>. It is never hardcoded.

Claude Code

claude mcp add dropscan -e DROPSCAN_TOKEN="dspat-..." -- dropscan-mcp

Claude Desktop / generic MCP client

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dropscan": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/dropscan-mcp/.venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["-m", "dropscan_mcp.server"],
      "env": {
        "DROPSCAN_TOKEN": "dspat-..."
      }
    }
  }
}

To enable the write/action tools, add "DROPSCAN_ALLOW_WRITES": "1" to env. Leave it out to keep the server strictly read-only.

The server runs over stdio.

Environment variables

License

MIT, see LICENSE.

Author

Fabian Bitter (fabian@bitter.de)