CV Builder

A self-hosted tool for maintaining a CV as structured content instead of a single hand-formatted document: a browser editor for a data-driven HTML/CSS resume, a SQLite-backed snippet library for assembling role-tailored variants, and an MCP server so an LLM can help do the same thing from a chat client instead of the browser.

Ships with a fully synthetic example person in cv/web/data.yaml and content/ — replace it with your own before you rely on this for real. Nothing in this repo is anyone's real personal data.

Layout

• cv/web/ — HTML/CSS CV source (data.yaml, template.html.j2, style.css) and the browser UI (editor.js, builder.js, variants.js
  • their .html/.css)
• content/ — optional additional detail for the snippet library, as markdown alongside data.yaml:
  • work-experience/ — one file per employer (category: experience, company taken from the filename)
  • parts/ — reusable blocks not tied to an employer, e.g. an alternate bio or a longer "detailed" variant of a strength (category: part)
  • requirements/ — pre-written answers to recurring posting requirements, for match_job_posting/the builder's posting-matcher to surface (category: requirement)
  • See the example files under each for the heading convention: only the last heading before a block of prose becomes a snippet
• src/cvbuilder/ — snippet library (SQLite), importer, matcher, composer, and the MCP server
• scripts/ — CLI entry points (see below)
• data/ — SQLite snippet database (snippets.db, gitignored, regenerable) and generated variants live under cv/variants/

Quickstart

pip install -r requirements.txt

# Seed the snippet database from cv/web/data.yaml + content/
PYTHONPATH=src python3 scripts/seed-snippets.py

# Run the editor / builder / variants UI
python3 scripts/serve-editor.py        # http://127.0.0.1:5057/cv/web/edit

Requires google-chrome or chromium on PATH for PDF export (CHROME_BIN env var to point at a specific binary).

Editing in the browser

scripts/serve-editor.py serves three pages:

• /cv/web/edit — click any text to edit it in place; hover controls add/reorder/delete list items (bullets, skills, jobs, subsections, education, custom side panels); Save & Preview renders a real PDF. Adding a skill/bio paragraph/education entry opens a picker fed from the snippet database, with search and duplicate flagging.
• /cv/web/build — browse/filter the snippet library, paste a job posting to re-rank snippets by keyword match, assemble an ordered draft, and compose it into a new named variant under cv/variants/<name>/.
• /cv/web/variants — preview, re-render, or delete composed variant folders.

Docker

Runs the editor/builder UI and the MCP server in one container, with the repo bind-mounted so edits land on the host:

docker compose up --build
# editor:   http://127.0.0.1:5057/cv/web/edit
# builder:  http://127.0.0.1:5057/cv/web/build
# variants: http://127.0.0.1:5057/cv/web/variants
# MCP:      http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp  (streamable-http)

Both ports publish to 127.0.0.1 only. Set ENABLE_MCP=0 in the compose environment block to run the web UI without the MCP server.

Connecting an LLM (MCP server)

src/cvbuilder/mcp_server.py (run via scripts/mcp-server.py) exposes the snippet library and composer as MCP tools: list_snippets, get_snippet, create_snippet, update_snippet, add_snippet_variant, delete_snippet, delete_snippet_variant, match_job_posting, compose_cv, list_variants, list_drafts, get_draft, save_draft, delete_draft, reseed_snippets.

Local subprocess (stdio) — the client spawns the server itself:

claude mcp add cv-builder -- python3 /absolute/path/to/cv-builder/scripts/mcp-server.py

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cv-builder": {
      "command": "python3",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/cv-builder/scripts/mcp-server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Already-running server (HTTP) — point a client at the Docker container instead (MCP_TRANSPORT=streamable-http inside the container, published at http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp):

claude mcp add --transport http cv-builder http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cv-builder": { "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp" }
  }
}

There's no authentication on the MCP endpoint or the web UI — fine for local personal use, but don't publish either port beyond 127.0.0.1 without adding auth first.

Set SNIPPETS_DB to point either server at a different database file (defaults to data/snippets.db).

API endpoints (same Flask process as the editor)

• GET/POST/PUT/DELETE /api/snippets — list/create/update/delete snippets
• DELETE /api/snippets/<id>/variants/<level> — remove one detail level
• POST /api/structure — insert/delete/move/replace items in data.yaml
• GET /api/history, POST /api/undo, POST /api/redo — editor undo/redo
• GET/PUT/DELETE /api/drafts[/<name>] — saved builder drafts
• POST /api/match — rank snippets against posting text
• POST /api/compose — compose a named variant from selected snippet ids
• GET/DELETE /api/variants[/<name>], POST /api/variants/<name>/render
• GET /api/images, POST /api/images/upload, POST /api/images/fetch — list, upload, or download images/icons into assets/images/
• POST /api/seed — re-seed the database from YAML + markdown sources

Tests

python3 -m pytest