Use Tanod PDF and document tools in Dify as an MCP server

Updated 2026-10-16

Use when a Dify agent or workflow must read a PDF, convert a Word or Office file to Markdown, pull tables out of a PDF or turn a bank statement into transactions, and you would rather call a hosted tool than install and host a parser.

Dify can import the tools of any remote MCP server that speaks HTTP. Tanod's documents server at https://tanod.dev/mcp/docs is one: Streamable HTTP, no sign-up, no key and no OAuth. Some tools have a free daily allowance per IP; the rest are priced per call and paid with x402, which Dify's MCP client does not do (see payment below).

What Dify offers

From Dify's own docs (Dify Tools, MCP tab, read 16 October 2026):

• Only MCP servers with HTTP transport are supported. Tanod's are HTTP only, so that fits.
• You add a server with its URL, a name and a unique server identifier. Dify "connects, authorizes if needed, and imports the server's tools". Tanod needs no authorization, so leave the Custom Headers empty.
• Apps refer to the server by its identifier. If you change the identifier later, the server's tools stop working in apps that used the old one, and an exported app needs the same identifier in the workspace it is imported into. Pick one and keep it, for example tanod-docs.
• You can refresh the tool list later; a removed or changed tool can break an app that uses it.
• Timeouts can be raised under the advanced options. Leave them unless a long OCR job times out.

Tanod's documents server answered an MCP initialize with protocol version 2025-03-26 (the version Dify announced with its MCP support in v1.6.0) and with newer versions on 16 October 2026, and its tools/list returned 40 tools. I did not run a Dify instance for this guide; the field names above come from Dify's docs, so trust the screen in front of you if it differs.

Step by step

1. In Dify, open Tools and choose the MCP tab.
2. Add an MCP server (HTTP). URL: https://tanod.dev/mcp/docs. Name: Tanod documents. Server identifier: tanod-docs.
3. Save. Dify imports the tool list; you should see tools such as extract_pdf, pdf_inspect, convert_document_to_markdown, extract_pdf_tables and convert_bank_statement.
4. In an Agent app, or an Agent node in a workflow, add the Tanod tools you need. Picking a few keeps the prompt short.
5. Send one of the prompts below.

Three prompts to try

• "Extract the text of https://tanod.dev/samples/sample.pdf and give me a three-line summary." Uses extract_pdf, which has a free daily allowance per IP.
• "Inspect https://tanod.dev/samples/tables-sample.pdf and tell me how many pages and tables it has." Uses pdf_inspect, which also has a free daily allowance. Pulling the tables out as JSON or CSV is extract_pdf_tables, which has no free tier.
• "Convert https://tanod.dev/samples/sample.docx to Markdown and list its headings." Uses convert_document_to_markdown, which has no free tier: expect the tool to return a payment-required result that the agent reports back.

Each tool's description, as Dify imports it, states its price per call and its free allowance, if any. Allowances are per IP address and reset each UTC day. On Dify Cloud many workspaces share outgoing IP addresses, so the free calls can run out sooner than on a self-hosted Dify.

Where this fits next to marketplace plugins

Dify's marketplace already has popular document plugins. Read from its public search API on 16 October 2026 (tool plugins, sorted by installs): MinerU 227,622 installs, PDF Process 73,824, TextIn pdf2markdown 29,240, the OCR recognition service 13,867, Mistral OCR 9,050. Those are plugins you install into a workspace. Tanod is a hosted MCP server you add by URL, with no key, and it covers one job the marketplace barely does: a search for "bank statement" returned 7 tool plugins, the most installed with 143 installs. Tanod's convert_bank_statement turns a statement PDF into dated transactions with balances (how it works).

Payment beyond the free allowance

Dify's MCP client cannot pay x402. Calls past the free allowance, and every tool with no free tier, return an x402 payment-required result that Dify has no way to sign. For paid volume, call the HTTP API from your own code with an x402 client (for example from a service your workflow calls with an HTTP Request node): see pay-per-call APIs for AI agents with x402 and paying with MPP on Tempo. Prices are per call in USDC; there is no account or key.

Other Tanod MCP endpoints

Same steps, a different URL and identifier. The free allowance applies per tool as above; many tools in these families have a free tier, some have none.

• https://tanod.dev/mcp/web: search, page to Markdown, screenshots
• https://tanod.dev/mcp/chain: EVM and Solana reads
• https://tanod.dev/mcp/finance: SEC financials, Treasury yields, ECB FX
• https://tanod.dev/mcp/images: image toolkit
• https://tanod.dev/mcp/ml: speech to text, embeddings, rerank
• https://tanod.dev/mcp/security: contract and package scans, phishing and OFAC checks
• https://tanod.dev/mcp/sky: METAR/TAF, airports, space weather
• https://tanod.dev/mcp/text: text tools
• https://tanod.dev/mcp/util: developer utilities
• https://tanod.dev/mcp/agents: index of x402 endpoints and MCP servers

Using n8n or Open WebUI instead? See Tanod document tools in n8n and in Open WebUI. The documents server itself is described in a hosted PDF and OCR MCP server. Connection trouble: MCP connection errors explained.

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