PaperPilot – Zero-Cloud, Pure-Rust PDF Engine with WASM and MCP

vardhan1237

Hi HN, I built PaperPilot because I was frustrated by the privacy trade-offs of modern PDF utilities. Whenever you need to split, merge, compress, or sign a confidential document (tax forms, legal contracts, medical paperwork) using online tools, your files are transmitted to a third-party server. Most "free" tools retain copies or run in closed-source cloud environments. PaperPilot is a 100% zero-cloud, local-first engine written in pure Rust (built on top of lopdf, pdf-writer, and image). 0 bytes are ever sent to an external server. Key aspects of the project: 1. Penta-Interface Architecture: Instead of building just another web app or CLI, the same core Rust operations run across 5 surfaces: - Terminal CLI: High-throughput local processing and bash scripting. - Local Desktop App: Native cross-platform GUI built with Tauri 2 and Svelte 5. - Client-Side Web: Runs 100% inside your browser via WebAssembly ( https://usepaperpilot.com/ ). - REST / Gateway API: Standalone local daemon (localhost:7823) for local microservices. - Model Context Protocol (MCP): Connects local AI agents (Claude Desktop, Cursor, OpenCode) directly to local PDF tools so LLMs can inspect, redact, and sign PDFs on disk without cloud upload. 2. Capabilities (75+ Tools): - Standard operations: Merge, split, rotate, reorder, burst, booklet imposition, and N-up grid. - Privacy & Compliance: Local PII regex redaction (SSNs, cards, emails), metadata striping, and digital signature verification. - Document Extraction: PDF to structured Markdown tables (no coordinate loss), PDF to JSON, and pure-Rust layout analysis. - Offline RAG: Embedded vector store (libsql_vector) with an actionable visual citation canvas. 3. Performance & License: - Average operation latency is ~20ms to 130ms. - 100% Free and Open Source under the Apache 2.0 license. The GitHub repository is at https://github.com/KrushnaVardhanReddy/PaperPilot and the browser-based WASM sandbox is live at https://usepaperpilot.com/ . I’d love to hear your feedback on the architecture, performance benchmarks, and any edge-case PDF formats we should test against!

colesantiago

Is this PDF engine vibe-coded and derived from reading the MuPDF source code? (Written from C to Rust) I see some slight references to MuPDF in certain places. If it is you should disclose it and the license should be AGPLv3 instead of Apache.

jacquesm

In case you don't have showdead on, the OP writes: """ I built PaperPilot because I was frustrated by the privacy trade-offs of modern PDF utilities. Whenever you need to split, merge, compress, or sign a confidential document (tax forms, legal contracts, medical paperwork) using online tools, your files are transmitted to a third-party server. Most "free" tools retain copies or run in closed-source cloud environments. PaperPilot is a 100% zero-cloud, local-first engine written in pure Rust (built on top of lopdf, pdf-writer, and image). 0 bytes are ever sent to an external server. Key aspects of the project: 1. Penta-Interface Architecture: Instead of building just another web app or CLI, the same core Rust operations run across 5 surfaces: - Terminal CLI: High-throughput local processing and bash scripting. - Local Desktop App: Native cross-platform GUI built with Tauri 2 and Svelte 5. - Client-Side Web: Runs 100% inside your browser via WebAssembly ( https://usepaperpilot.com/ ). - REST / Gateway API: Standalone local daemon (localhost:7823) for local microservices. - Model Context Protocol (MCP): Connects local AI agents (Claude Desktop, Cursor, OpenCode) directly to local PDF tools so LLMs can inspect, redact, and sign PDFs on disk without cloud upload. 2. Capabilities (75+ Tools): - Standard operations: Merge, split, rotate, reorder, burst, booklet imposition, and N-up grid. - Privacy & Compliance: Local PII regex redaction (SSNs, cards, emails), metadata striping, and digital signature verification. - Document Extraction: PDF to structured Markdown tables (no coordinate loss), PDF to JSON, and pure-Rust layout analysis. - Offline RAG: Embedded vector store (libsql_vector) with an actionable visual citation canvas. 3. Performance & License: - Average operation latency is ~20ms to 130ms. - 100% Free and Open Source under the Apache 2.0 license. The GitHub repository is at https://github.com/KrushnaVardhanReddy/PaperPilot and the browser-based WASM sandbox is live at https://usepaperpilot.com/ . I’d love to hear your feedback on the architecture, performance benchmarks, and any edge-case PDF formats we should test against! """ Which reads very much LLM produced.

febed

Would be useful to have a remove password feature (for a known password) and support for adding signatures