Zotero MCP is a feature-rich server that seamlessly integrates your Zotero library with AI assistants. It offers core capabilities like search, semantic search, annotation extraction, and item management, with optional extensions for scite citation intelligence and advanced PDF handling. Setup is straightforward via CLI or manual config, and the documentation is comprehensive. The main risks involve API key handling and external service dependencies, which users should manage carefully. Overall, it is highly suitable for researchers and students.
Zotero MCP connects your Zotero research library with AI assistants via the Model Context Protocol. It supports both local and web access, offering AI-powered semantic search (optional extra), paper search, summaries, citation analysis, PDF annotation extraction, and write operations like adding papers by DOI or URL, managing collections, and merging duplicates. Requires Zotero 7+ with local API enabled or a Zotero Web API key for write operations. Optional tool groups (e.g., scite, duplicates) can be enabled via environment variables.
zotero-mcp setup for auto-configuration (supports Claude Desktop), or manually add the JSON config to your MCP client as shown in the docs.{
"mcpServers": {
"zotero": {
"command": "zotero-mcp",
"env": {
"ZOTERO_LOCAL": "true",
"ZOTERO_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY",
"ZOTERO_LIBRARY_ID": "YOUR_LIBRARY_ID"
}
}
}
}