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Large File MCP: Handle Massive Files in Claude with Intelligent Chunking

A production-ready MCP server that makes working with large files in Claude Desktop and AI assistants effortless — smart chunking by file type, line-level navigation, regex search, and streaming for files up to 10 GB.

Have you ever tried to analyze a 500 MB log file with Claude only to hit token limits? Or struggled to navigate through a massive CSV dataset? I built Large File MCP to solve exactly these problems.

The Problem with Large Files in AI Assistants

AI assistants like Claude Desktop are incredibly powerful, but they have a fundamental limitation: token context windows. When you're dealing with:

  • Multi-gigabyte log files from production servers
  • Large CSV datasets with millions of rows
  • Massive JSON configuration files
  • Extensive codebases spanning thousands of lines

...traditional file reading approaches fail. You can't just load everything into memory, and manually chunking files is tedious and error-prone.

Introducing Large File MCP

Large File MCP is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides intelligent, production-ready large file handling for AI assistants. It's designed to make working with files of any size as seamless as working with small text files.

Key Features

Smart Chunking The server automatically detects your file type and applies optimal chunking strategies:

  • Text/log files: 500 lines per chunk
  • Code files (.ts, .py, .java): 300 lines per chunk
  • CSV files: 1000 lines per chunk
  • JSON files: 100 lines per chunk

Intelligent Navigation Jump to any line in a file with surrounding context:

Show me line 1234 of /var/log/system.log with context

Powerful Search Find patterns with regex support and contextual results:

Find all ERROR messages in /var/log/app.log

Memory Efficient Files are streamed line-by-line, never fully loaded into memory. Built-in LRU caching provides 80–90% hit rates for frequently accessed files.

Production Ready

  • 91.8% test coverage
  • Cross-platform (Windows, macOS, Linux)
  • Type-safe TypeScript implementation
  • Comprehensive documentation

Installation

Claude Desktop (Recommended)

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "large-file": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@willianpinho/large-file-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop after editing.

Claude Code CLI

claude mcp add --transport stdio --scope user large-file-mcp -- npx -y @willianpinho/large-file-mcp

Available Tools

Large File MCP provides 6 tools:

Tool Purpose
read_large_file_chunk Read specific chunks with intelligent sizing
search_in_large_file Regex search with context lines
navigate_to_line Jump to specific line with surrounding context
get_file_structure File metadata and line statistics
get_file_summary Statistical summary (lines, chars, words)
stream_large_file Stream file in byte-based chunks

Performance Benchmarks

File Size Operation Time Method
< 1 MB < 100ms Direct read
1–100 MB < 500ms Streaming
100 MB–1 GB 1–3s Streaming + cache
> 1 GB Progressive AsyncGenerator

LRU cache: 100 MB default, 5-minute TTL, 80–90% hit rate for repeated access.

Why MCP?

The Model Context Protocol is an open protocol that standardizes how AI assistants interact with external tools. One implementation works across Claude Desktop, Claude Code CLI, and any other MCP-compatible client. Sandboxed execution, explicit permissions, no surprise network calls.

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