Connect cookbook
NextPDF Connect opens the NextPDF engine to remote callers and artificial
intelligence (AI) systems over the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a
Representational State Transfer (REST) API, and a gRPC service. The Connect
cookbook gathers the task recipes for that surface, and this page is its
index. It records each recipe slug, the tier it belongs to, and the
transport boundary that applies. Each recipe page is authored in the
nextpdf/server repository under docs/public/, owns its own claims, and
is pulled into this site by the aggregator with its source provenance
intact.
To see the contract every Connect recipe follows, read Recipe conventions. For the full ecosystem integration landscape, read the Integration cookbook.
How tier affects what you can run
Section titled “How tier affects what you can run”A Connect deployment computes its tool set at boot; it is not fixed in
advance. The server’s tool registry always registers the core tools. It
then probes for the Pro and Enterprise providers with class_exists(), and
registers their tools only when nextpdf/premium is installed alongside
the server. A recipe that depends on a Pro or Enterprise tool runs only on a
deployment where that tool resolved. On an open-source-only install, the
tool is absent, and the call returns an unknown-tool error instead of
degrading silently. Each recipe states its tier, and this index groups
recipes by tier so you can see what a deployment supports at a glance.
The total tool count is a runtime property of the deployment. The catalog of record is the server’s own tool catalog, which each recipe links.
Transport and error model
Section titled “Transport and error model”You invoke every recipe the same way over all three transports: an MCP
tools/call, the REST tool endpoint, or the gRPC service. They share one
tool executor. Recipes that reach a remote service over Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP) treat a transport failure and a non-success HTTP status as
separate cases. A PSR-18 client raises a typed client exception only when
it cannot send the request at all, as described in PSR-18 §4. A 4xx or
5xx response is different. It is a normal return value that the caller
inspects, not an exception, as described in PSR-18 §4.
The recipe slug map
Section titled “The recipe slug map”Each recipe lives at /cookbook/connect/<recipe>/. The table records the
slug, the tier the recipe is read under, and a one-line scope. The recipe
pages are authored in the nextpdf/server repository’s docs/public/ tree
and publish into this site through the aggregator.
| Recipe | Tier | Scope |
|---|---|---|
hello-world | Core | First Connect call: create, add content, output |
multi-page | Core | Multi-page document over Connect |
image-embedding | Core | Embed an image over Connect |
html-table | Core | Render an HTML table over Connect |
font-typography | Core | Fonts and typography over Connect |
exception-aware | Core | Exception-aware tool calls |
environment-diagnostics | Core | Environment diagnostics tools |
layout-inspection | Core | Inspect layout without rendering |
worker-safe | Core | Worker-safe batch usage |
batch-pdf-generation-with-progress-tracking | Core | Batch-generate PDFs with async progress tracking |
rest-invoice-end-to-end | Core | One invoice over REST: submit, poll, download, verify locally |
output-approval | Core | The human-in-the-loop output gate |
mcp-agent-session | Core | A captured MCP agent session with the approval round trip |
event-hooks | Core | Lifecycle event hooks |
fill-pdf-form | Pro | Fill a PDF form over Connect |
extract-text-content | Pro | Extract text content over Connect |
digital-signature | Pro | Sign a PDF (PAdES B-B and B-T) over Connect |
accessibility-check | Pro | PDF/UA accessibility check |
pii-redaction | Enterprise | Remove detected personal data from the text layer (destructive) |
aria-tagged-pdf | Pro | Map ARIA landmark roles to tagged structure |
figure-caption | Pro | Accessible Figure with a nested Caption |
aria-noteref-pattern | Pro | Footnote reference and body pattern |
compliance-check | Enterprise | Run a named-standard check |
forensic-analysis | Enterprise | Forensic analysis of a signed PDF |
ltv-health-check | Enterprise | LTV health check (B-LT/B-LTA, Enterprise-only) |
batch-compliance | Enterprise | Batch standards check |
ai-ready-certification | Enterprise | AI-readiness check (not a certification) |
page-artifacts | Enterprise | Mark pagination chrome as artifacts |
conformance-mode | Enterprise | Select a conformance mode (intended to conform; a validator decides) |
cjk-vertical-writing | Enterprise | CJK vertical writing metrics |
opentelemetry | Core | Observe Connect with OpenTelemetry |
tagged-pdf-tutorial | Core | Tagged PDF tutorial (intended to conform; veraPDF decides) |
The slug expresses the recipe’s intent in kebab-case with a single trailing slash: no numeric prefix, no version number, and no file extension. A recipe slug does not change after publication, and a moved slug carries a redirect.
Conformance and certification boundary
Section titled “Conformance and certification boundary”Several recipes touch standards (PDF/UA-2, PDF/A-4, PAdES). The Connect cookbook treats support for a standard as support, never as conformance or certification. The engine produces output intended to conform, and an independent validator (for example veraPDF) determines conformance. The AI-readiness recipe is a readiness check, not a certification. The LTV recipe’s long-term-validation material is an Enterprise-only capability. Its presence in a document is a capability the document carries, not a guarantee of indefinite signature validity. Each affected recipe restates these boundaries in full. This index only notes that they exist and points to where they are derived, instead of re-deriving them here.
See also
Section titled “See also”- Recipe conventions — the contract every Connect recipe follows.
- Integration cookbook — the ecosystem-wide package and integration reference, where Connect is the network service.