MCP Server

Pyzotero 1.12+ ships an optional Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that exposes your local Zotero library and Semantic Scholar integration as tools for LLM clients (e.g., Claude Desktop).

Requirements

Zotero 7 with local API access enabled:
- Zotero → Settings → Advanced → Allow other applications on this computer to communicate with Zotero
Python 3.10+ (required by pyzotero[mcp])

The MCP server reads from your local Zotero installation — it does not use the remote Web API or an API key.

Installation

bash

# In a project
uv add "pyzotero[mcp]"

# As a standalone tool
uv tool install "pyzotero[mcp]"

Run without installing:

bash

uvx --from "pyzotero[mcp]" pyzotero-mcp

Claude Desktop Configuration

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

If pyzotero-mcp is installed:

json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zotero": {
      "command": "pyzotero-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Without installing (via uvx):

json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zotero": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "pyzotero[mcp]", "pyzotero-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

Zotero Library Tools

Tool	Description
`search`	Search the local library by query, item type, collection, tag, or full-text content
`get_item`	Get a single item by key
`get_children`	Get child items (attachments, notes) of an item
`list_collections`	List all collections
`list_tags`	List all tags, optionally filtered by collection
`get_fulltext`	Get full-text content of a PDF or other attachment

Semantic Scholar Tools

Tool	Description
`find_related`	Find semantically similar papers (SPECTER2 embeddings)
`get_citations`	Find papers that cite a given paper
`get_references`	Find papers referenced by a given paper
`search_semantic_scholar`	Search Semantic Scholar's paper index

Semantic Scholar tools can optionally check whether results already exist in your local Zotero library (check_library parameter, enabled by default).

MCP vs Web API vs CLI

Mode	Access	API key	Best for
Web API (`Zotero(...)`)	Remote library sync	Required	Automation, bulk CRUD, group libraries
CLI (`pyzotero[cli]`)	Local Zotero 7	Not required	Shell scripts, quick local search
MCP (`pyzotero[mcp]`)	Local Zotero 7	Not required	LLM agents in sandboxed apps

For remote library management from Python, use the Web API client documented in the other reference files. Use MCP or CLI when you need fast access to locally indexed PDFs and full-text search without network calls.