Zotero MCP Bridge

Zotero MCP Bridge is a Zotero 7 plugin that will expose a local Model Context Protocol (MCP) server so LLM clients can browse and query your Zotero library with tool calls. The plugin is written in TypeScript and will integrate the modelcontextprotocol/typescript-sdk for the MCP implementation.

This repository started from the canonical Zotero plugin template, but the template-only samples and UI chrome have been removed so we can focus on the MCP bridge code.

Project Goals

Ship a local MCP server that runs inside Zotero and surfaces Zotero-specific tools such as listing open tabs, searching items, and browsing collections.
Provide a lightweight communication shim so LLMs can attach to the running Zotero MCP server.
Keep the UI surface minimal—most interaction should happen through MCP tool calls rather than extra Zotero menus.

Repository Layout

src/ – TypeScript source for the plugin, including the MCP runtime scaffolding.
addon/ – Static assets packaged with the XPI (manifest, icons, locale strings).
test/ – Mocha test suite executed via npm test.
zotero-plugin.config.ts – Build configuration for zotero-plugin-scaffold.

Getting Started

npm install npm run build # bundles the plugin and runs `tsc --noEmit`

During development you can hot-reload the plugin into Zotero with:

npm run start

Run tests in a scaffolded Zotero instance with:

npm test

Note: the build pipeline expects Zotero 7 and the latest Node.js LTS release. See the official developer guide for environment prerequisites.

Contributing

Track work with bd (see AGENTS.md).
Keep code TypeScript-first with strict linting (npm run lint:check).
Commit code and .beads/issues.jsonl together so issue state mirrors code state.