MCP Zotero MCP server

MCP Zotero

Note: This is an unofficial community project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by the Zotero team or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. "Zotero" is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

A Model Context Protocol server for Zotero integration. It gives any LLM full access to your Zotero library: search, organize, add papers by DOI, import PDFs, read full-text content, and inject live citations into Word documents.

Originally based on mcp-zotero by Abhishek Kalia.

This project has since been extensively rewritten with a new architecture, 15 tools (up from 5), citation injection, PDF management, and Claude skill support.

How it works

The server is designed to be usable by any LLM without external documentation. On connection, it sends workflow instructions via the MCP instructions field, and each tool description includes cross-references and usage guidance. An LLM that has never seen this server before can discover the full workflow — from adding papers to producing a cited Word document — directly from the tool listing.

For advanced use cases (PDF upload policy, citation style guidance, source transparency), a Claude skill is included for Claude.ai Projects. But the skill is optional: the MCP server is fully self-documenting.

Local vs Remote LLMs

LLMs with filesystem access can use all tools directly, including inject_citations which reads and writes .docx files on disk.

LLMs without filesystem access — including Claude Desktop, which connects to MCP but cannot generate files locally — can use the included Claude skill (skills/zotero-skill-mcp-integrations/), which runs citation injection entirely inside a sandbox. MCP tools handle all Zotero API operations; the skill handles document assembly.

Claude Skill Setup (for Claude.ai Projects and Claude Desktop)

1. Download the skill .zip from the latest GitHub Release
2. Extract it and upload the folder to your Claude.ai Project as a skill
3. The skill enables citation injection directly inside the sandbox, without requiring local filesystem access

Setup

Requires Node.js 22 or newer.

The server is listed in the official MCP Registry as io.github.Xevos117/mcp-zotero (starting with the first release after 2.0.2), so registry-aware clients can find and install it from there; the configuration below works with any MCP client.

1. Get your Zotero credentials:

# Create an API key at https://www.zotero.org/settings/keys
   # (enable library read/write + file access)
   # Then retrieve your user ID:
   curl -H "Zotero-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" https://api.zotero.org/keys/current

1. Set environment variables:

export ZOTERO_API_KEY="your-api-key"
   export ZOTERO_USER_ID="user-id-from-curl"
   export UNPAYWALL_EMAIL="your@email.edu"   # Optional: enables OA PDF lookup via Unpaywall
   export UNSAFE_OPERATIONS="none"           # Optional: "none" | "items" | "all" (see below)

Targeting a group library

By default the server targets your personal Zotero library (/users//...). To target a group library instead, set two additional environment variables:

Example for a group library:

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.