MCP Zotero

by kaliaboi

Integrations

  • Allows Claude to interact with your Zotero library, including listing collections, retrieving items in collections, getting detailed information about papers, searching the library, and retrieving recently added papers.

MCP Zotero

A Model Context Protocol server for Zotero integration that allows Claude to interact with your Zotero library.

Setup

  1. Get your Zotero credentials:
    # First, create an API key at https://www.zotero.org/settings/keys # Then use it to get your user ID: curl -H "Zotero-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" https://api.zotero.org/keys/current
    The response will look like:
    { "userID": 123456, "username": "your_username", "access": { "user": { "library": true, "files": true, "notes": true, "write": true } } }
    The userID value is what you need.
  2. Set environment variables:
    export ZOTERO_API_KEY="your-api-key" export ZOTERO_USER_ID="user-id-from-curl"
  3. Verify your credentials:
    # Test that your credentials work: curl -H "Zotero-API-Key: $ZOTERO_API_KEY" \ "https://api.zotero.org/users/$ZOTERO_USER_ID/collections"
    You should see your collections list in the response.
  4. Install and run:
    # Install globally (recommended) npm install -g mcp-zotero mcp-zotero # Or run directly with npx npx mcp-zotero

Integration with Claude Desktop

To use this server with Claude Desktop, add the following to your Claude Desktop configuration:

{ "mcpServers": { "zotero": { "command": "mcp-zotero", "env": { "ZOTERO_API_KEY": YOUR_API_KEY, "ZOTERO_USER_ID": YOUR_USER_ID } } } }

Available Tools

  • get_collections: List all collections in your library
  • get_collection_items: Get items in a specific collection
  • get_item_details: Get detailed information about a paper
  • search_library: Search your entire library
  • get_recent: Get recently added papers

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues:

  1. Verify your environment variables are set:
    echo $ZOTERO_API_KEY echo $ZOTERO_USER_ID
  2. Check the installation:
    npm list -g mcp-zotero
  3. Try reinstalling:
    npm uninstall -g mcp-zotero npm install -g mcp-zotero

You must be authenticated.

A
security – no known vulnerabilities
A
license - permissive license
A
quality - confirmed to work

remote-capable server

The server can be hosted and run remotely because it primarily relies on remote services or has no dependency on the local environment.

Allows AI to interact with your Zotero library.

  1. Setup
    1. Integration with Claude Desktop
      1. Available Tools
        1. Troubleshooting

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