Local document conversion

Covers mcp__cherry-tools__to_markdown — converting a supported readable local document into Markdown. This is distinct from knowledge-base tools, which search documents already indexed by Cherry, and from shell runtimes or managed CLIs.

Get exact argument shapes from the live tool schema — this reference gives routing, sequencing, supported formats, and recovery.

Workflow

Use mcp__cherry-tools__to_markdown when an agent needs the structured contents of a local document that ordinary text reads cannot handle.

Pass a path relative to the session workspace, or an absolute path to a file the user attached to this session (the paths announced with the turn) or one under the agent data directory. Cherry converts the source with its bundled document converter and writes the complete result to an agent-private temporary Markdown file. The tool result contains only that file's absolute path and character count — it deliberately does not inject the whole document into context. Read the returned file in slices, search it, or copy it to a user-requested final path with the ordinary file tools.

Supported inputs

Family	Extensions
Word	`.doc`, `.docx`, `.docm`
PowerPoint	`.ppt`, `.pps`, `.pot`, `.pptx`, `.pptm`, `.ppsx`, `.ppsm`
Excel	`.xls`, `.xlsx`, `.xlsm`, `.xlsb`
OpenDocument	`.odt`, `.ods`, `.odp`
Other	`.rtf`, `.epub`, `.csv`, `.pdf`

The tool currently accepts one required argument: path, a workspace-relative path or an absolute path to an authorized file. It does not accept an output path, format override, page range, password, or OCR option. The converter detects recognizable formats from file contents and falls back to the extension; CSV has no signature, so it must use the .csv extension.

The source must be a readable regular file and must not exceed the tool's size limit. It must also be inside the session workspace, inside the agent data directory, or be one of the files the user attached to this session; every other path is rejected, and .. or symlink escapes out of those roots are rejected too. Temporary conversions older than 24 hours are removed when the tool runs again.

Recovery and limits

Tool unavailable → document conversion is unavailable in this session; do not install or invoke a substitute converter behind the user's back.
Unsupported or unreadable file → report the converter error. Do not retry through npm, bun x, npx, direct mise, a remote installer, or a manually downloaded binary.
Empty output → report that no text was produced; never present it as a successful conversion.
Scanned/image-only PDF → OCR is required and this tool does not provide it.
Windows ARM64 → upstream currently publishes no native binding, so conversion is unavailable on that platform.

Example

"Summarize reports/q3-review.pptx."

Call mcp__cherry-tools__to_markdown with reports/q3-review.pptx → read or search the returned temporary Markdown path in slices → summarize the relevant sections. Do not install a separate document CLI or load the complete Markdown into model context.