Shipped in 0.14.0 (TAN-3648, framework PR #153, commit eeb16b48). DoclingTools is the 63rd POJO toolkit and contributes one @Tool method.

DoclingTools converts a local document through Docling. TnsAI does not bundle Docling, Python, or models. You install one of:

the official Docling MCP server, sharing the same filesystem as the JVM so the admitted source path is resolvable
a local docling CLI on PATH (or an explicit executable path)

PdfTools stays PDFBox-first. Docling page rendering is an explicit constructor argument and runs only when PDFBox cannot open the admitted file. The default PdfTools constructors use DoclingProvider.noOp().

See the framework Changelog — the 0.14.0 entry (2026-08-18) covers it.

Register

import com.tnsai.agents.AgentBuilder;
import com.tnsai.enums.BuiltInTool;

agentBuilder.builtInTools(BuiltInTool.DOCLING_TOOLS);

The LLM-visible method is docling_parse. It returns Markdown only, truncated at 100_000 characters. Structured tables, formulas, figures, and lossless Docling JSON require the Java parse(Path) API.

The no-arg DoclingTools constructor probes a docling executable lazily. DoclingTools.builder() starts from DoclingProvider.noOp() until you call docling(...).

MCP vs CLI

	MCP (`DoclingProvider.mcp`)	CLI (`DoclingProvider.subprocess`)
Runtime	Official Docling MCP server; TnsAI is an MCP client	Local `docling` process via `ProcessBuilder` — never a shell
Trust	String factory accepts loopback HTTP(S) only (`localhost` / `127.0.0.1` / `::1`), no user-info in the URL. Remote servers need a caller-supplied `McpClient` whose server can resolve the same admitted path	Executable name or path only (no `\0`, max 4_096 chars). The source path is an argv element
Deploy	MCP server + shared filesystem (or a custom client that can see the file)	`docling` installed; Python/models live in that install
Availability	`available()` is true for a validated loopback URL	Cached `docling --version` probe, 5 s timeout. Missing binary → `available() == false`
On miss	Conversion throws	`parse` delegates to `noOp()`, which throws `IOException("Docling is unavailable; configure an MCP endpoint or install the docling CLI")`
Timeout	5 minutes per MCP tool call; 200 ms minimum interval between calls	5 minutes per conversion; temp output capped at 64 MiB
Output caps	Exported Markdown capped at 1_000_000 characters	Each `.md` / `.json` / page PNG read capped at 10 MiB
MCP tools	`convert_document_into_docling_document`, then `export_docling_document_to_markdown`	`docling convert --to md --to json`

Both providers go through FileGuard and DoclingTools.DEFAULT_EXTENSIONS (pdf, Office, HTML, Markdown, images, wav/mp3/vtt, xml, latex/tex).

Configure MCP

import com.tnsai.tools.document.docling.DoclingProvider;
import com.tnsai.tools.document.docling.DoclingTools;
import com.tnsai.tools.document.docling.DocumentResult;

DoclingTools tools = DoclingTools.builder()
    .docling(DoclingProvider.mcp("http://127.0.0.1:9000/mcp"))
    .build();

DocumentResult result = tools.parse(Path.of("/data/paper.pdf"));
String markdown = result.markdown();
boolean structured = result.hasStructuredContent();

A pre-connected client is DoclingProvider.mcp(mcpClient) when the server is not loopback but can still read the admitted path.

Configure CLI

DoclingTools tools = DoclingTools.builder()
    .docling(DoclingProvider.subprocess("docling"))
    .build();

DocumentResult result = tools.parse(Path.of("/data/paper.pdf"));

Or new DoclingTools() — same lazy docling probe, FileGuardConfig.defaults().

`PdfTools` fallback

import com.tnsai.tools.document.docling.DoclingProvider;
import com.tnsai.tools.file.FileGuardConfig;
import com.tnsai.tools.file.PdfTools;

PdfTools pdf = new PdfTools(
    FileGuardConfig.defaults(),
    DoclingProvider.subprocess("docling"));

PDFBox still renders first. Docling renderPages runs only after PDFBox fails to open the file. No configured provider (noOp()) means that failure stays a PDFBox error.

Not this page

FILE RAG ingest extractors (PdfContentExtractor, office SPI) — document formats
Heading-aware analysis split — SmartDocumentSegmenter, not Docling
Installing Docling itself — upstream Docling docs

Docling