zotero-mcp

Read+write MCP server for Zotero. An MCP server with full write support for managing Zotero library from AI assistants.

It lets you create items, manage collections, find and merge duplicates, and import BibTeX from within Claude Code/Desktop, or any MCP-compatible client.

Uses the Zotero Web API (requires API key). Get the key at https://www.zotero.org/settings/keys.

Features

Search & Read

Write

Collections

Management

Installation

Requires Python 3.11+ and uv.

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/BirdInTheTree/zotero-mcp.git
cd zotero-mcp
uv sync

Usage

Claude Code

claude mcp add zotero \
  -e ZOTERO_API_KEY=your-key \
  -e ZOTERO_USER_ID=your-user-id \
  -- uv run --directory /path/to/zotero-mcp python -m zotero_mcp

Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config (`~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json` on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zotero": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "--directory", "/path/to/zotero-mcp", "python", "-m", "zotero_mcp"],
      "env": {
        "ZOTERO_API_KEY": "your-key",
        "ZOTERO_USER_ID": "your-user-id"
      }
    }
  }
}

Configuration

Get your API key at https://www.zotero.org/settings/keys. Your user ID is shown on the same page.

Examples

Once connected, you can ask your AI assistant things like:

• "Search my Zotero for papers ..."
• "Create a new collection called ..."
• "Import this BibTeX into my collection"
• "Find duplicate items in my library and merge them"
• "Add this paper to both collections"
• "Look up DOI 10.1234/example and add it to my library"

Development

# Install with dev dependencies
uv sync --dev

# Run tests
uv run pytest tests/ -v

License

MIT