Zotero MCP Server

Zotero MCP server is a hosted integration for AI assistants that speak the Model Context Protocol. Add papers and books to Zotero by DOI, arXiv ID, or ISBN and manage your library.

What you get

An MCP server that lets Claude, Codex, and ChatGPT add papers and books to your Zotero library by DOI, arXiv ID, or ISBN — and manage your collections, tags, and items.

Setting it up

Being a remote server, there is no local install. You register the endpoint with your client, authorise it once, and the tools appear.

What the assistant can call

Once Zotero is connected, these are the calls the assistant has available:

• Collections — The Collections tool exposed by this server
• Tags — The Tags tool exposed by this server
• Verification — The Verification tool exposed by this server
• Deleting — The server also exposes the standard read-only search and fetch tool shapes used by ChatGPT company knowledge and deep research

Configuration and credentials

You will need 8 environment variables: ZOTERO_LIBRARY_ID, ZOTERO_API_KEY, ZOTERO_WEBDAV_URL, ZOTERO_WEBDAV_USER, ZOTERO_WEBDAV_PASSWORD, ZOTERO_MCP_OAUTH_ISSUER, ZOTERO_MCP_OAUTH_RESOURCE, ZOTERO_MCP_OAUTH_JWKS_URL. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.

1. A Zotero account 2. A Zotero API key with write permissions: https://www.zotero.org/settings/keys 3. Your Zotero library ID (shown on the same page, or in your profile URL) 4. uv installed

Before you rely on it

• Your data travels to the provider's service, so the usual questions apply about what you send and what they retain.
• Missing credentials fail quietly in some clients — if no tools show up, check the environment block first.
• MCP clients confirm each tool call by default. Leave that on until you have watched what the zotero mcp server does with a few real requests.

Choosing this one

Plenty of developer tooling servers cover similar ground. The differences that matter in practice are scope of access and how much setup stands between you and a working tool call. Zotero's toolset — Collections, Tags, Verification and 1 more — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by RaulSimpetru; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.

We check each listing at SyncDev against the project's documentation before it goes live — if something here drifts out of date, it is a bug worth reporting.