feat: add update_document tool for editing existing document metadata

[hannahswain]

Summary

• Adds updateDocument(id, data) to PaperlessAPI using PATCH /api/documents/{id}/
• Adds a new update_document MCP tool exposing: title, created, correspondent, document_type, storage_path, tags, archive_serial_number

Motivation

The existing tools cover uploading new documents (post_document) and bulk metadata operations (bulk_edit_documents), but there's no way to update fields on an existing document — including the created date.

This matters because Paperless-NGX defaults the document date to the upload/scan date rather than the actual date printed on the document. Without this tool, users have to fix dates manually in the UI even when Claude can read the correct date directly from the OCR content.

What's not changed

bulk_edit_documents is unchanged — it remains the right tool for setting correspondent/type/tags across many documents at once. update_document is for single-document edits and fields bulk operations don't reach (title, date).

Test

Tested against a live Paperless-NGX instance. PATCH /api/documents/{id}/ is a standard endpoint in the Paperless-NGX API.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features
  • Document metadata can now be updated, including title, creation date, correspondent, document type, storage location, tags, and archive serial number. Input validation ensures data consistency and integrity throughout the update process.

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ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: 22566963-2d00-4378-9b33-10db3c1d0c66

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 9157c5b and 0fb8aa0.

📒 Files selected for processing (5)

• README.md
• src/tools/correspondents.ts
• src/tools/documentTypes.ts
• src/tools/documents.ts
• src/tools/tags.ts

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

A new document update feature is introduced, comprising an updateDocument() method in the PaperlessAPI class that issues a PATCH request, and a corresponding update_document tool that validates input metadata fields and invokes the API method.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
API Layer src/api/PaperlessAPI.ts	Added updateDocument(id, data) method that issues a PATCH request to /documents/{id}/ with JSON-stringified data, with error handling delegated to existing request() helper.
Tools Layer src/tools/documents.ts	Added update_document tool registration with Zod validation for optional metadata fields (title, created, correspondent, document_type, storage_path, tags, archive_serial_number). Tool extracts document id and forwards remaining data to api.updateDocument().

Sequence Diagram

sequenceDiagram
    actor Client
    participant Tool as update_document Tool
    participant API as PaperlessAPI
    participant Backend as Paperless Backend

    Client->>Tool: Request update with id + metadata
    Tool->>Tool: Validate inputs (Zod schema)
    Tool->>Tool: Check api configured
    Tool->>API: updateDocument(id, data)
    API->>Backend: PATCH /documents/{id}/
    Backend-->>API: Response
    API-->>Tool: Resolved response
    Tool-->>Client: Update result

Loading

Estimated Code Review Effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~12 minutes

Poem

🐰 A new tool hops into the warren,
With patches aplenty, no time to tarry—
Documents dance with renewed delight,
Metadata shuffles left and right,
Update them swiftly, tidy and bright! ✨

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately describes the main change: adding an update_document tool for editing document metadata. It is concise, specific, and clearly summarizes the primary contribution.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.

_{✏️ Tip: You can configure your own custom pre-merge checks in the settings.}

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 2

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against the current code and only fix it if needed.

Inline comments:
In `@src/tools/documents.ts`:
- Line 109: The schema for archive_serial_number is defined as
z.number().nullable().optional() but must be a string to match post_document and
accept non-numeric serials; update the schema entry for archive_serial_number to
use z.string().nullable().optional() (keeping the same .describe text) in the
documents schema and verify any validation or consumers of archive_serial_number
expect a string (e.g., post_document-related code paths).
- Around line 111-115: The update handler currently allows a PATCH with only an
id (no fields) because it destructures args into { id, ...data } and blindly
calls api.updateDocument(id, data); add a guard after destructuring to check
that data has at least one own property (e.g., Object.keys(data).length > 0) and
throw a clear error (e.g., "No fields to update") if it's empty, so
api.updateDocument is only called when there is at least one field to change.

🪄 Autofix (Beta)

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

---

ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: cb565d7f-cada-4742-a631-637d5b9a5119

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 4ba7457 and 9157c5b.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• src/api/PaperlessAPI.ts
• src/tools/documents.ts