Model Context Protocol server for Zotero

This project is a python server that implements the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for Zotero, giving you access to your Zotero library within AI assistants. It is intended to implement a small but maximally useful set of interactions with Zotero for use with MCP clients.

Features

This MCP server provides the following tools:

zotero_search_items: Search for items in your Zotero library using a text query
zotero_item_metadata: Get detailed metadata information about a specific Zotero item
zotero_item_fulltext: Get the full text of a specific Zotero item (i.e. PDF contents)

These can be discovered and accessed through any MCP client or through the MCP Inspector.

Each tool returns formatted text containing relevant information from your Zotero items, and AI assistants such as Claude can use them sequentially, searching for items then retrieving their metadata or text content.

Installation

This server can either run against either a local API offered by the Zotero desktop application) or through the . The local API can be a bit more responsive, but requires that the Zotero app be running on the same computer with the API enabled. To enable the local API, do the following steps:

zotero-mcp

Model Context Protocol server for Zotero

Features

Installation