GST e-invoice extraction

Turns an Indian GST tax invoice into the government's INV-01 JSON payload, and tells you exactly what it could not read.

Ships as an MCP server with three tools, so an agent can parse a document, check a GSTIN, or re-validate a payload it already holds.

It produces a submission-ready payload, not a filed invoice. There is no IRN here. An Invoice Reference Number is issued by the government's Invoice Registration Portal after you submit the payload to it. Nothing in this repository talks to the IRP.

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The idea

An extraction tool that quietly guesses is worse than one that says it cannot read a field. A hallucinated digit in a GSTIN that still passes its checksum, or a line item that was never on the page, is the failure that costs an accountant real money — and it is invisible precisely because it looks right.

So the design has one rule: the model may structure text, it may never invent values. That is enforced twice. The prompt says it, and then every value the model returns is checked back against the document text before it is kept. A value with no source in the document is replaced with null and reported, however plausible it looks. If that field is mandatory in INV-01, no payload is produced at all.

Everything the tool knows about its own work — how each page was read, where each field came from, what it was unsure about — travels beside the payload in extraction_meta, never inside it. The payload stays strictly spec-pure, because the government API rejects unknown keys.

Read LIMITATIONS.md before trusting the output. It is specific about what the tool cannot corroborate, and what that costs you.

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Install

Requires Python 3.11 or newer and Tesseract OCR as a system dependency.

# Tesseract (Windows)
winget install UB-Mannheim.TesseractOCR

# Tesseract (Debian/Ubuntu)
sudo apt-get install -y tesseract-ocr

# Tesseract (macOS)
brew install tesseract
python -m venv .venv
.venv/Scripts/activate        # Windows
# source .venv/bin/activate   # Linux / macOS
pip install -e .

Tesseract does not need to be on PATH: the OCR module looks there first, then at the standard Windows install location, and raises an actionable error naming both if neither works.

Environment

Variable	Required	Purpose
GROQ_API_KEY	yes	Stage 2 reads the line-item table through Groq
GST_MCP_MODEL	recommended	Pin the model your key can reach
GST_MCP_TRANSPORT	no	stdio (default), sse, or streamable-http

The default model is openai/gpt-oss-120b, which is what this release was validated against. It works without configuration.

Still set GST_MCP_MODEL in a deployment. A hard-coded model identifier expires silently when the provider retires it, and the failure arrives as an HTTP 404 that reads like a bad key rather than a stale constant. Pin the model you have access to, and check it against Groq's deprecation notices.

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MCP client configuration

pip install puts a gst-einvoice-mcp command on your PATH, so a client only needs to name it:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gst-einvoice": {
      "command": "gst-einvoice-mcp",
      "env": {
        "GROQ_API_KEY": "your-key-here",
        "GST_MCP_MODEL": "openai/gpt-oss-120b"
      }
    }
  }
}

Running from a clone rather than an install? Point command at the interpreter inside your virtual environment and invoke the module directly:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gst-einvoice": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/.venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["-m", "gst_einvoice.server"],
      "env": {
        "GROQ_API_KEY": "your-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

On Windows that interpreter path ends \.venv\Scripts\python.exe.

Tools

Tool	Takes	Gives back
parse_invoice	a file path, optional tolerance	the INV-01 payload, missing fields, refusals, and extraction_meta
validate_gstin	a GSTIN	structure, checksum, state code, PAN, and the reason on failure
validate_payload	an INV-01 payload	the four consistency checks over a payload you already hold

parse_invoice has three normal outcomes, and only the first gives you a payload:

1. A payload plus warnings. Usable, but the warnings say which fields were read at low OCR confidence, which were assigned by position rather than by a label, and which were derived rather than printed.
2. No payload, missing_fields populated. A mandatory field could not be read. Nothing was invented to fill the gap, which is why there is no payload.
3. No payload, refusals populated. Export, SEZ and foreign-currency invoices are refused by design, with a message saying what was detected and what to do instead.

---

Worked example

The invoice, as a text-layer PDF:

TAX INVOICE
Seller: Nimbus Components Pvt Ltd
GSTIN 27AAPFU0939F1ZV
Plot 14 MIDC Andheri East
Mumbai 400093
Invoice No: INV-2026-0042
Invoice Date: 17/04/2026
Bill To: Kanchan Electricals LLP
GSTIN 27AABCB5507N1ZJ
18 Connaught Place
Pune 411005
Sl 1 Laptop Stand HSN/SAC: 8471 Qty 4 NOS Rate 1500.00
Taxable 6000.00  GST 18%  CGST 540.00  SGST 540.00  IGST 0.00  Line Total 7080.00
Taxable 6000.00  CGST 540.00  SGST 540.00  IGST 0.00
Total Invoice Value 7080.00
from gst_einvoice.extract_llm import make_client
from gst_einvoice.pipeline import extract_invoice

# model defaults to openai/gpt-oss-120b; pass model=... to override
result = extract_invoice("invoice.pdf", client=make_client())

The payload

{
  "Version": "1.1",
  "TranDtls": { "TaxSch": "GST", "SupTyp": "B2B" },
  "DocDtls": { "Typ": "INV", "No": "INV-2026-0042", "Dt": "17/04/2026" },
  "SellerDtls": {
    "Gstin": "27AAPFU0939F1ZV",
    "LglNm": "Nimbus Components Pvt Ltd",
    "Addr1": "Plot 14 MIDC Andheri East",
    "Loc": "Mumbai",
    "Pin": 400093,
    "Stcd": "27"
  },
  "BuyerDtls": {
    "Gstin": "27AABCB5507N1ZJ",
    "LglNm": "Kanchan Electricals LLP",
    "Addr1": "18 Connaught Place",
    "Loc": "Pune",
    "Pin": 411005,
    "Stcd": "27",
    "Pos": "27"
  },
  "ItemList": [
    {
      "SlNo": "1",
      "PrdDesc": "Laptop Stand",
      "IsServc": "N",
      "HsnCd": "8471",
      "Qty": 4.0,
      "Unit": "NOS",
      "UnitPrice": 1500.0,
      "TotAmt": 6000.0,
      "Discount": 0.0,
      "AssAmt": 6000.0,
      "GstRt": 18.0,
      "CgstAmt": 540.0,
      "SgstAmt": 540.0,
      "IgstAmt": 0.0,
      "CesAmt": 0.0,
      "StateCesAmt": 0.0,
      "OthChrg": 0.0,
      "TotItemVal": 7080.0
    }
  ],
  "ValDtls": {
    "AssVal": 6000.0, "CgstVal": 540.0, "SgstVal": 540.0, "IgstVal": 0.0,
    "CesVal": 0.0, "StCesVal": 0.0, "RndOffAmt": 0.0, "TotInvVal": 7080.0
  }
}

The warnings block

This is the half most tools do not give you. Seven entries, from the run above, one warning and six info:

[warning] extract_llm  ItemList[0].SlNo
    "1" is a single character. It is printed as a token of its own in the document,
    which is why ItemList[0].SlNo was kept rather than dropped, but one character
    matches almost any page by accident, so the corroboration is weak. Confirm it
    against the invoice by eye — on a line item, that means the row numbering.

[info]    extract_llm  ItemList[0].HsnCd
    "8471" is not printed as a code of its own in this row's text: it was grounded by
    the HSN/SAC codes stage 1 confirmed, or by a longer number elsewhere on the page.
    Which code belongs to which row is the model's judgement, which the grounding
    check cannot corroborate.

[info]    extract_llm  ItemList[0].Discount
    ItemList[0].Discount was not found in the document: the model returned no value
    for it, so it is left empty rather than filled with a guess.

[info]    extract_llm  ItemList[0].CesAmt        (same wording)
[info]    extract_llm  ValDtls.CesVal            (same wording)
[info]    extract_llm  ValDtls.RndOffAmt         (same wording)

[info]    pipeline     BuyerDtls.Pos
    BuyerDtls.Pos (place of supply) was not read from the document — build 2 does not
    extract it — so it was assumed equal to the buyer's registered state code (27).
    A genuine bill-to/ship-to supply, where the goods go to a different state from
    the one the buyer is registered in, has a different place of supply, and the
    CGST/SGST-versus-IGST split follows the place of supply.

Nothing in that list means the payload is wrong. Each one names something the tool could not corroborate, so you know where to look. The four arithmetic validators raised nothing, which is what silence from them means.

On an invoice whose template omits a column — an intra-state invoice with no IGST column, or one that prints a taxable value but no separate gross — you will also see a pipeline note saying the field was derived rather than read, and field_provenance will record it as "source": "derived". The same applies to the per-line total on a single-line invoice that prints its total only at the foot: it is derived from the INV-01 item identity, but only when the invoice has exactly one line item and the derived value reconciles with the printed ValDtls.TotInvVal. On a multi-line invoice a missing TotItemVal is still reported missing and no payload is produced — see LIMITATIONS.md for why.

Provenance

extraction_meta.field_provenance carries an entry for every field in the payload — 45 for this invoice — saying which stage produced it and, for a scanned page, the OCR confidence of the text it was read from:

{
  "SellerDtls.Gstin":  { "source": "regex",   "ocr_confidence": null },
  "SellerDtls.Stcd":   { "source": "derived", "ocr_confidence": null },
  "ItemList[0].PrdDesc": { "source": "llm",   "ocr_confidence": null },
  "ItemList[0].IsServc": { "source": "derived", "ocr_confidence": null },
  "BuyerDtls.Pos":     { "source": "assumed", "ocr_confidence": null }
}

On a scanned page the same fields carry real numbers — 0.86 to 0.96 on a clean 300 dpi render — and the lowest confidence across a field's words is the one recorded.

source	Meaning
regex	Confirmed deterministically, structurally certain
llm	Structured by the model, then verified against the document text
derived	Follows by rule from values that were read; not printed on the page
assumed	Neither read nor derived — an assumption the tool names explicitly

---

Development

pytest -q -W error

1617 tests across ten modules, passing with warnings treated as errors. The LLM stage takes an injected client, so the whole suite runs with no API key and no network.

The suite passes on both 3.11 and 3.13; 3.11 is the floor because that is the lowest version the whole dependency set resolves on, and it was verified by running the suite there rather than assumed.

Testing local changes through an MCP client

The MCP server runs whatever is installed in site-packages, not your working tree. An MCP client launches the server through the gst-einvoice-mcp entry point, which resolves to the installed distribution. Editing a file in the repo changes nothing that the server serves until you reinstall, and there is no error to tell you — the tool call succeeds and returns the old behaviour.

This is easy to lose an hour to. During the 0.1.2 work the repo carried a new derivation rule while the server was still serving 0.1.1, so a tool call against the new code silently exercised the old path and appeared to show the change had not worked.

Either reinstall after every change:

pip install -e .        # editable, so later edits are picked up on server restart

or point the MCP client's command at the repo's own virtualenv instead of a user-level install, so the server and the tests run the same code:

// in your MCP client config
"command": "C:\\path\\to\\repo\\.venv\\Scripts\\gst-einvoice-mcp.exe"

Either way, restart the MCP server after changing code — a running server holds the modules it imported at start-up. If a change seems to have no effect, check which copy is being served before looking for the bug in your code.

Module	What it does
gstin.py	Structure and mod-36 checksum
state_codes.py	State code table, including discontinued 25 and legacy 28
schema.py	INV-01 pydantic models, extra="forbid" throughout
validators.py	The four arithmetic and tax-split checks
ingest.py	Per-page routing and the detect-and-refuse rules
ocr.py	Tesseract with per-word confidence mapped onto character spans
extract_rules.py	Deterministic extraction: GSTINs, parties, number, date, HSN
extract_llm.py	The LLM stage and the grounding check
pipeline.py	End-to-end assembly
server.py	The MCP server

Licence note

This project depends on PyMuPDF, which is AGPL-3.0. That is a deliberate choice, made because PyMuPDF opens image files directly as one-page documents and gave more reliable text-layer detection than the alternatives. If you intend to distribute this tool as part of a closed-source product, check that licence first.