zotero-translator-mcp

A CLI and MCP server that exposes Zotero translators to LLMs and AI agents, enabling bibliographic metadata extraction from URLs, DOIs, ISBNs, and other identifiers — plus format conversion between BibTeX, RIS, CSL-JSON, and 14 other citation formats.

What are Zotero Translators?

Zotero translators are small JavaScript programs that know how to extract bibliographic metadata from specific websites and data sources. There are over 700 translators maintained in the zotero/translators repository, covering publishers (ACM, IEEE, Springer, Elsevier, Wiley, etc.), preprint servers (arXiv, bioRxiv, SSRN), library catalogs (WorldCat, Library of Congress), and databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science).

These are the same translators that power the Zotero browser connector — the "save" button that extracts citation data when you visit an article page. The Zotero Translation Server packages these translators as a standalone REST API, and this MCP server wraps that API for use by AI agents.

Motivation

Several Zotero MCP servers already exist (e.g., 54yyyu/zotero-mcp, mcp-zotero), but they focus on managing an existing Zotero library — searching items, reading annotations, organizing collections. They all require Zotero API credentials and an existing library.

None of them provide standalone metadata extraction or citation format conversion.

This project fills that gap:

Capability	Existing Zotero MCPs	This project
Extract metadata from a URL	Requires Zotero API key	No account needed
Look up a DOI/ISBN/PMID	Requires Zotero API key	No account needed
Convert Zotero JSON to BibTeX/RIS	Not available	Yes
Convert BibTeX/RIS to Zotero JSON	Not available	Yes
Search/manage a Zotero library	Yes	Not the goal

This makes zotero-translator-mcp ideal for:

• AI agents that need to extract citations from web pages without a Zotero account
• Automated pipelines that convert between bibliography formats
• Headless, server-side workflows where no Zotero desktop client is available

Zero-Setup Design

On first run, the server automatically:

1. Clones the Zotero Translation Server to ~/.cache/zotero-translator-mcp/
2. Installs its dependencies
3. Starts it as a child process on port 1969

On subsequent runs, it pulls the latest translators via git pull before starting — so you always have up-to-date translators without manual intervention.

Prerequisites: git and node (v18+) must be available on your PATH.

Two Interfaces: CLI vs MCP

This package provides two ways to access Zotero's translation engine:

	CLI (zotero-translator)	MCP (zotero-translator-mcp)
Invocation	npx github:jooyoungseo/zotero-translator-mcp search "DOI"	MCP protocol over stdio
Best for	AI agents with Bash access, scripts, pipelines	MCP-native clients (Claude Code, VS Code, etc.)
Token cost	Minimal — one Bash call, direct output	Higher — JSON-RPC protocol overhead, tool schemas, handshake
Piping	search ... | export -f bibtex	Not applicable
Composability	Unix pipes, shell scripts	MCP tool chaining

For AI agents, the CLI is significantly more token-efficient. A single Bash tool call replaces the MCP initialization handshake, tool listing, schema transfer, and JSON-RPC wrapping — saving hundreds of tokens per interaction.

Installation

CLI (via npx)

No installation needed — run directly:

npx -y github:jooyoungseo/zotero-translator-mcp get "10.1145/3613904.3642743"

Or install globally:

npm install -g github:jooyoungseo/zotero-translator-mcp
zotero-translator get "10.1145/3613904.3642743"

MCP Server — Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport stdio --scope user zotero-translator -- npx -y -p github:jooyoungseo/zotero-translator-mcp zotero-translator-mcp-server

MCP Server — Claude Desktop / VS Code / other MCP clients

Add to your MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zotero-translator": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "-p", "github:jooyoungseo/zotero-translator-mcp", "zotero-translator-mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

CLI Usage

The get command auto-detects the input type — URL, DOI, ISBN, PMID, or arXiv ID:

# DOI
zotero-translator get "10.1145/3613904.3642743"

# URL (auto-detected by https:// prefix)
zotero-translator get "https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642743"

# ISBN
zotero-translator get "978-0-13-468599-1"

# Pipe to BibTeX
zotero-translator get "10.1145/3613904.3642743" | zotero-translator export -f bibtex

# Convert BibTeX to Zotero JSON
cat refs.bib | zotero-translator import

# Other export formats
zotero-translator get "10.1145/3613904.3642743" | zotero-translator export -f ris
zotero-translator get "10.1145/3613904.3642743" | zotero-translator export -f csljson

Run zotero-translator --help for full usage.

MCP Tools

zotero_translate_url

Extract bibliographic metadata from a webpage URL using Zotero's translation engine.

Input:  { "url": "https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642743" }
Output: Zotero JSON array with title, authors, DOI, abstract, etc.

zotero_search_identifier

Look up metadata by DOI, ISBN, PMID, or arXiv ID.

Input:  { "identifier": "10.1145/3613904.3642743" }
Output: Zotero JSON array with resolved metadata

zotero_export_bibliography

Convert Zotero JSON to a supported export format (BibTeX, RIS, CSL-JSON, etc.).

Input:  { "items": "[...]", "format": "bibtex" }
Output: Formatted BibTeX string

Supported export formats:

Format	Value
BibTeX	bibtex
BibLaTeX	biblatex
Bookmarks (HTML)	bookmarks
COinS	coins
CSL-JSON	csljson
CSV	csv
EndNote XML	endnote_xml
Evernote ENEX	evernote
MODS	mods
RDF/Bibliontology	rdf_bibliontology
RDF/Dublin Core	rdf_dc
RDF/Zotero	rdf_zotero
Refer/BibIX	refer
RefWorks Tagged	refworks_tagged
RIS	ris
TEI	tei
Wikipedia Citation Templates	wikipedia

zotero_import_bibliography

Convert data in any supported import format (BibTeX, RIS, etc.) to Zotero JSON.

Input:  { "data": "@article{seo2024, title={...}, ...}" }
Output: Zotero JSON array

Configuration

All configuration is optional. The server works out of the box with no environment variables.

Environment Variable	Default	Description
ZOTERO_TRANSLATION_SERVER_URL	—	If set, connects to an external translation server instead of auto-starting one
ZOTERO_TRANSLATION_SERVER_PORT	1969	Port for the auto-started translation server
ZOTERO_TRANSLATION_SERVER_DIR	~/.cache/zotero-translator-mcp	Directory where the translation server is cloned

License

AGPL-3.0-only — same license as the Zotero Translation Server it wraps.

Acknowledgments

This project wraps the Zotero Translation Server by the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.