dcmclient

One static binary, 55 DICOM tools — first-class for people and for agents. A complete command-line DICOM toolbox and a self-describing MCP/agent surface, from one tool registry. No SDK, no per-tool glue, no runtime dependencies.

# drive it yourself
$ dcmclient dcmdump scan.dcm                   # inspect — one element per line
$ dcmclient dcmconv --to jxl ct.dcm out.dcm    # transcode (incl. JPEG-XL / HTJ2K)
$ dcmclient dcmvalidate scan.dcm               # IOD conformance check
$ dcmclient search https://pacs.example.com --patient-id 42 --json   # query a PACS

# …or hand it to an agent
$ dcmclient mcp                # serve every tool to an MCP client over stdio
$ dcmclient manifest           # per-tool inputSchema + outputSchema as JSON

Not a medical device. Not intended or cleared for clinical or diagnostic use — outputs are for research and engineering only.

→ Quickstart · Agent integration · Tool reference (every flag of every tool)

A complete command-line toolbox

55 tools covering the whole job — inspect, convert, author, extract, edit, de-identify, validate, and move studies over the network:

# inspect — as text / JSON / XML / SR tree
$ dcmclient dcmdump   scan.dcm                 # one element per line
$ dcmclient dcm2json  scan.dcm > scan.json     # DICOM JSON (PS3.18)
$ dcmclient dcm2xml   scan.dcm > scan.xml      # Native DICOM XML (PS3.19)
$ dcmclient dsrdump   report.dcm              # Structured Report content tree

# convert & transcode — every codec built in (JPEG-2000 / JPEG-LS / RLE / JPEG-XL / HTJ2K)
$ dcmclient dcmconv   --to jxl ct.dcm out.dcm
$ dcmclient dcm2nii   ct_series/ ct.nii.gz     # → NIfTI
$ dcmclient pdf2dcm   report.pdf out.dcm       # wrap a PDF as Encapsulated PDF

# edit / de-identify / validate
$ dcmclient dcmodify    scan.dcm -i '(0010,0010)=Anon^Patient'
$ dcmclient dcmdeident  study/*.dcm --out-dir deid/    # PS3.15 Annex E
$ dcmclient dcmvalidate scan.dcm                       # IOD conformance

# networking — DICOMweb (search / pull / push) + DIMSE (echo / store / find / get / move)
$ dcmclient pull      https://pacs.example.com --study 1.2.3 -o ./out
$ dcmclient store-scu PACS 11112 ./*.dcm --aec PACS
$ dcmclient find-scu  PACS 11112 -S -k QueryRetrieveLevel=SERIES --json

Prefer per-tool commands? One symlink gives each its own name — ln -s dcmclient dcmdump makes dcmdump scan.dcm work. Full list + every flag in the tool reference.

A self-describing agent surface

Every tool is declared once in a single registry. That one declaration is the command-line parser, the manifest self-description, and the mcp tools/list reply — so the agent surface can never drift from what the binary actually does.

• mcp — a live Model Context Protocol server over stdio; any MCP client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, your own runtime) discovers and calls all 55 tools with zero per-tool wiring.
• manifest — each tool's inputSchema + outputSchema as JSON, ready to drop into a function-calling tool definition. Filter by readOnly / network / writesFiles to expose only a safe subset.
• JSON envelope — {tool, ok, exit_code, result, error} on --json; stdout is machine output, stderr is human diagnostics; graduated exit codes separate bad input from runtime failure.

Install

Homebrew (macOS & Linux) — the recommended path:

$ brew install dcmkit/tap/dcmclient
$ dcmclient --help

Direct download — grab the binary for your platform from the releases page and put it on your PATH (macOS builds are Developer-ID signed & notarized):

# macOS (arm64); swap the asset for your platform:
#   dcmclient-macos-arm64 · dcmclient-macos-x86_64
#   dcmclient-linux-aarch64 · dcmclient-linux-x86_64  (glibc 2.28+)
$ curl -L -o dcmclient https://github.com/dcmkit/dcmclient/releases/latest/download/dcmclient-macos-arm64
$ install -m 755 dcmclient /usr/local/bin/
$ dcmclient --help

Container (sandboxed agents / CI) — the binary is the entrypoint:

$ docker run --rm -i ghcr.io/dcmkit/dcmclient mcp        # MCP server over stdio
$ docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/work" ghcr.io/dcmkit/dcmclient dcm2json /work/scan.dcm

One symlink gives each tool its own name — ln -s dcmclient dcmdump makes dcmdump scan.dcm work, with no extra binary to ship.

Documentation

Full docs — quickstart, agent integration, and the generated tool reference — at dcmkit.github.io/dcmclient.

License

Apache-2.0 (see LICENSE / NOTICE). The DICOM engine ships as a compiled binary; third-party components linked into it are listed in THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES — all permissive except FFmpeg, which is included under LGPL-2.1 with a §6 relink offer.