Zotero MCP: Chat with your Research Library in Claude, ChatGPT, and more

Zotero MCP connects your Zotero research library with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI assistants (e.g., Cherry Studio, Chorus, Cursor) via the Model Context Protocol. Search your library, read and annotate papers, add and organize items, and find research by meaning.

AI agents: read docs/for-agents.md first. It covers which route to use, setup, and the commands in one place.

Three ways in

One package, zotero-mcp-server, ships all three. Pick the one that fits where you work.

	MCP server	zotero-cli + agent skill	Zotero Agent
For	Chat apps that speak MCP but have no shell: Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Cherry Studio, Chorus	Agents with a shell: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, Amp, OpenCode	Chatting inside Zotero, next to the PDF you are reading
How	zotero-mcp setup	zotero-mcp install-skill	zotero-cli plugin, then install the .xpi in Zotero
Why	Works in any MCP client	98 tokens in context until it is needed, instead of ~13k	Knows the item, page and selection you have open; answers link to pages
Guide	Getting started	CLI and agent skill	Zotero Agent plugin

What it does

• Search by title, author, tag, collection, full text, or meaning (semantic search with local, OpenAI, Gemini, or Ollama embeddings)
• Read metadata, BibTeX, full text, and page ranges of PDFs, with page images where text extraction garbles math, figures, and tables
• Annotate: highlights and area boxes placed on the exact words, figure, table, or equation; notes; PDF annotation extraction
• Write: add papers by DOI, URL, ISBN, BibTeX, or file (with open-access PDFs), manage collections and tags, merge duplicates
• Local or web: in local mode reads come straight from zotero.sqlite; writes go to the running Zotero 10+ or through the web API
• Scite citation tallies and retraction alerts (optional)

Quick start

1. Install (Python 3.10+):

uv tool install zotero-mcp-server     # or: pip install zotero-mcp-server

New to the command line? Try the community-built Zotero MCP Setup: a macOS GUI installer, one-click scripts for Mac and Windows, and a step-by-step guide.

2. Enable Zotero's local API: in Zotero 7+, open Settings → Advanced and tick Allow other applications on this computer to communicate with Zotero.

3. Connect your assistant:

zotero-mcp setup      # auto-configures Claude Desktop

or add the server by hand to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zotero": {
      "command": "zotero-mcp",
      "env": { "ZOTERO_LOCAL": "true" }
    }
  }
}

Teach the agent to drive zotero-cli (the cheaper route, see below):

zotero-mcp install-skill

Or use the MCP server: for Claude Code, add the same mcpServers entry as above to ~/.claude.json.

See Getting started.

zotero-cli plugin     # where the .xpi is, and how to install it

Then in Zotero: Tools > Plugins, the gear, Install Plugin From File. Details: Zotero Agent plugin.

4. Writes (optional): on Zotero 10+, run zotero-mcp authorize-local once and choose Always Allow. On older Zotero, add ZOTERO_API_KEY and ZOTERO_LIBRARY_ID to write through the web API.

Then ask things like "Find papers in my library on attention mechanisms", "Summarize the key findings of this paper", or "Highlight the main claims of this PDF".

Optional extras

The base install covers search, reading, annotations, and writes. Heavier features are extras:

Extra	What it adds	Install command
semantic	Semantic search via ChromaDB, sentence-transformers, OpenAI/Gemini embeddings	pip install "zotero-mcp-server[semantic]"
pdf	PDF outlines, page layout and page images (PyMuPDF), EPUB annotations	pip install "zotero-mcp-server[pdf]"
scite	Scite citation tallies and retraction alerts (no account needed)	pip install "zotero-mcp-server[scite]"
all	Everything above	pip install "zotero-mcp-server[all]"

Update any time with zotero-mcp update.

MCP server or agent skill?

If your agent has a shell (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, Amp, OpenCode …), one command teaches it to drive zotero-cli:

zotero-mcp install-skill

An MCP server sends every tool's schema on every request, before you type anything. The skill costs 98 tokens until the agent decides it is relevant:

Route	In context	Paid
MCP server, default profile (38 tools)	13,448	every request
Agent skill, frontmatter only	98	always
Agent skill, body loaded	1,368	when it fires

Use the MCP server when your client speaks MCP but has no shell (Claude Desktop, ChatGPT); use the skill when it has a shell. Both share one config. Details: CLI and agent skill.

Zotero Agent: chat inside Zotero

A plugin that adds a chat panel to Zotero itself, driven by your own Claude Code, Codex or pi. It knows which item and page you have open and works your library through zotero-cli. Answers cite papers with real zotero:// links, so a click opens the PDF at that page. It ships in the wheel: run zotero-cli plugin for the file and the install steps, or paste the one-paragraph prompt in the docs to your agent and let it do the setup. Details: Zotero Agent plugin.

Documentation

Guide	What's in it
Getting started	Connecting Claude Desktop and Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cherry Studio, Chorus, Autohand, and other MCP clients
Configuration	Environment variables, local writes, web and hybrid modes, the SQLite read backend, global search, text extraction, command-line options
Semantic search	Embedding models, building and updating the index
Tools	Every MCP tool, tool groups (ZOTERO_MCP_TOOLSETS), related items, PDF annotation extraction
CLI and agent skill	zotero-cli command reference, --json output, install-skill
Zotero Agent plugin	The chat panel inside Zotero: install, first run, agents and sign-in, privacy
Docker	Container images and runtime modes
Troubleshooting	Common problems and fixes
For AI agents	One guide for an agent setting up or using Zotero MCP

Website: stevenyuyy.com/zotero-mcp · Changelog

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Run the tests with uv run pytest tests/. A live integration test plan, meant to be run by Claude against a real library, is in docs/integration-test-plan.md. Changes to the plugin in plugin/ (AGPL-3.0) are accepted on the condition that the maintainer may also release them under other terms, including commercial ones.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed code, fixes, and ideas to Zotero MCP.

Support

Zotero MCP is free and open source.

If it saves you or your lab time, sponsoring helps cover the unglamorous parts: Windows and WSL2 edge cases, Zotero schema changes, group-library support, and the embedding/search infrastructure.

Labs and institutions: the $50 and $200 tiers are meant to be expensable, and include priority triage on the issues affecting your workflow.

License

The MCP server and zotero-cli are MIT (LICENSE). The Zotero Agent plugin in plugin/ is AGPL-3.0-or-later (plugin/LICENSE), the license Zotero itself uses.