zotero-mcp

MCP server that gives Cursor AI live read access to your Zotero library. Ask Cursor to look up papers by author, topic, or collection — it queries your real library on demand.

This projcet is 100% vibe coded

Inspiration

The starting point was wanting Cursor to have context about academic papers alongside an analysis project . Result: a lightweight MCP server giving Cursor live read access to the Zotero web API on demand. The goal isn't to dump your whole library into context — it's to let the AI look things up, surface your notes, follow connections between papers, and reason about what you've been reading.

How it works

Cursor calls these tools exposed by this server:

Tool	Purpose
zotero_search	Full-text search across your library (personal or group)
zotero_get_item	Full metadata + abstract for one item
zotero_list_collections	Browse your collections (personal or group)
zotero_get_collection_items	Items within a collection (personal or group)
zotero_list_groups	List all group libraries you have access to

The server runs as a subprocess on stdio transport — Cursor spawns it, passes credentials via environment variables, and kills it when done.

Setup

1. Get credentials

Go to zotero.org/settings/keys:

• API key → "Create new private key", grant read-only library access
• User ID → shown on the same page as "Your userID for use in API calls" (a plain number)

2. Install dependencies

# in the zotero-mcp mamba/conda env
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Add to Cursor (WSL + mamba)

Edit %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\settings.json and add to mcpServers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zotero": {
      "command": "wsl",
      "args": [
        "/home/cait/miniforge3/envs/zotero-mcp/bin/python",
        "/mnt/c/Users/Cait/Projects/zotero-mcp/server.py"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Credentials are read from .env in the project directory — no need to repeat them in settings.json.

Restart Cursor after saving.

4. Smoke test

In your WSL terminal:

conda activate zotero-mcp
ZOTERO_API_KEY=yourkey ZOTERO_USER_ID=yourid python server.py
# Should hang waiting for stdin — that means it started correctly. Ctrl+C to exit.

Tool reference

zotero_search(query, limit=10, group_id=None)

Full-text search across your library. Includes notes; excludes attachments. Pass group_id to search a group library.

zotero_search("attention mechanism", limit=5)
zotero_search("chromatin potential", group_id="12345")

Returns: [{key, title, authors, year, abstract, item_type}, ...]

zotero_get_item(item_key, group_id=None)

Full metadata for one item. item_key is the 8-character Zotero key (e.g. "ABC12345").

zotero_get_item("ABC12345")
zotero_get_item("ABC12345", group_id="12345")

Returns: {key, title, authors, year, abstract, item_type, doi, url, publication, volume, issue, pages, publisher, tags, collections, date_added}

zotero_list_groups()

All group libraries you have access to.

Returns: [{id, name, description, num_items}, ...]

zotero_list_collections(group_id=None)

All collections in your library. Pass group_id to list a group library's collections.

Returns: [{key, name, item_count}, ...]

zotero_get_collection_items(collection_key, limit=20, group_id=None)

Items within a specific collection. Pass group_id to fetch from a group library.

zotero_get_collection_items("XYZ98765", limit=10)
zotero_get_collection_items("XYZ98765", group_id="12345")

Returns: [{key, title, authors, year, abstract, item_type}, ...]

Security

• API key is passed only via environment variable — never in code or on disk
• The server validates credentials at startup and exits with a clear error if any are missing
• .env is gitignored; use .env.example as a template if you prefer local .env over Cursor's env block
• Server has read-only access to Zotero (enforced by the API key permissions you set)

Changelog

Recent changes

• Group library support — new zotero_list_groups() tool to discover group IDs; all existing tools now accept an optional group_id parameter to query a group library instead of your personal one
• Notes included in search — Zotero notes are no longer excluded from results; note content (HTML-stripped) is surfaced as title/abstract

Potential improvements

• Dedicated note search — zotero_search_notes(query) tool that searches only within user notes, with full note content returned
• Tag support — expose zotero_get_tags() to list all tags in library, and zotero_search_by_tag(tag) to filter by tag
• Tag colors — Zotero supports colored tags (position 1–9); surface these in tag metadata so Cursor can reason about your personal tagging system
• Auto-tag awareness — distinguish between user-created tags and auto-generated ones (e.g. from Zotero connectors or imports); Zotero marks these with type: 1 vs type: 0
• Tag search in zotero_search — include tags in search results by default so Cursor sees how you've categorised a paper