Document comparison API and MCP server
Version Story’s comparison engine is deterministic: it produces the exact set of changes between two versions of a document, preserving footnotes, tables, numbering, and formatting. Three programmatic surfaces expose it.
REST API
Plain HTTP with an API key. Compare two documents or merge several revisions of one: submit, poll for the result, download it. The right fit for backend services, batch jobs, and anything that already speaks HTTP.
MCP server
A hosted Model Context Protocol server for AI agents. The client discovers the tools itself and the user signs in with their own Version Story account over OAuth.
Claude plugin
The same engine, installed into Claude and run locally. Its scripts orchestrate the whole comparison in a single tool call, working directly from documents on the user's computer.
Which one should I use?
It comes down to who is driving. Reach for the REST API when your own code makes the call and you want a plain HTTP request authenticated with an API key. Reach for the MCP server when an AI agent does the work on behalf of a signed-in user, discovering the tools and authenticating through OAuth. Reach for the Claude plugin when that agent is Claude on the desktop app or in Cowork: it runs the same engine locally, from the documents already on the machine, and finishes in fewer turns.
What the engine does
| Capability | Produces |
|---|---|
| Compare | A true redline of every change between a base document and each revision |
| Merge | One document folding together revisions of a shared base, each edit labeled by where it came from |
| Combine | One document folding together independent drafts that share no base |
| Version history | One document attributing every surviving change to the version that introduced it |
Every comparison renders to whichever deliverable you ask for:
- Word document with real tracked changes
- PDF redline
- PDF of only the changed pages
Start building
Issue a REST API key from Settings → Developer in the Version Story web app. The MCP server needs no key at all — connect a client and sign in with your Version Story account.