v0.4.0 Release Notes

This release introduces MCP server support for ExStruct, enabling agent tool integration with a stdio server, plus new extraction utilities, policies, and expanded tests and documentation.

Highlights

• Added MCP stdio server (exstruct-mcp) with tools:
• exstruct_extract
• exstruct_read_json_chunk (cursor + filters for large outputs)
• exstruct_validate_input (pre-checks for files and COM availability)
• Introduced MCP path policy (allowlist + deny globs), output conflict handling (--on-conflict), and optional warmup for latency reduction.
• Added typed extraction options for MCP runs (pretty/indent and side outputs), and clarified file validation errors.
• Improved openpyxl border scanning (deferred column shrink) for late-table detection; added backend selection for border clustering.
• Documentation updates for MCP setup and agent configuration (site nav and README updates), plus expanded tests and CI dependency installation.

Notes

• MCP dependencies are optional: install with pip install exstruct[mcp].
• read_json_chunk enforces file paths and chunk size limits; use sheet/ filter when outputs are large.