Zotero Assistant

Zotero library management MCP server for Cloudflare Workers, designed for deployment via mcp-deploy.

Tools (16)

Groups

• list_groups — list Zotero groups the user belongs to (returns group IDs for use with group_id params)

Search & Browse

• search_items — search by text, tags, type, collection, or date range
• get_collection_items — list items in a specific collection
• list_collections — list all collections (folders)
• create_collection — create a new collection
• list_tags — list tags with item counts
• get_library_stats — library overview with totals and top tags

Read

• get_item — full metadata and children for a single item
• read_attachment — read attachment content (auto-detects type, accepts parent or attachment key)
• get_note — read note content

Write

• save_item — create an item with metadata and optional attachment (PDF URL, snapshot, or base64 file)
• attach — attach a file to an existing item (supports pdf_url, snapshot_url, or file via base64)
• create_note — create a note on an existing item
• update_item — update metadata, tags, or collections
• trash_item — move a note or attachment to trash

All tools that operate on library data accept an optional group_id parameter. Omit it for the personal library; pass a group ID (from list_groups) to operate on a group library.

Features

• Server instructions — workflow guidance injected once at init, not per-tool
• Progress notifications — multi-step operations (attach, save with attachment, read) emit MCP progress events
• Group library support — call list_groups to discover groups, pass group_id to any tool
• Smart author parsing — handles "Last, First", suffixes (Jr., III), and institutional authors
• Curated responses — get_item returns only non-empty, agent-relevant fields; search results are compact summaries

Deploy

Install mcp-deploy and deploy to Cloudflare Workers:

npm install -g mcp-deploy
mcp-deploy login
mcp-deploy add upascal/zotero-assistant-mcp
mcp-deploy deploy zotero-assistant-mcp

Or use the web UI: mcp-deploy gui

How it works

This repo contains only MCP logic. Auth, deployment, and UI are handled by mcp-deploy (npm install -g mcp-deploy). The repo ships:

• src/ — MCP server code (Cloudflare Workers + Durable Objects)
• mcp-deploy.json — deployment contract (secrets, config, worker settings)

Configuration

Secret	Required	Description
ZOTERO_API_KEY	Yes	Zotero API key
ZOTERO_LIBRARY_ID	Yes	Your numeric user library ID

Local development

npm install

# Create .dev.vars with your Zotero credentials:
# ZOTERO_API_KEY=your-api-key
# ZOTERO_LIBRARY_ID=your-library-id

npx wrangler dev

Testing

npm test

Integration tests run against a live Zotero library. Set .dev.vars with your credentials. Tests create temporary items/collections and clean up after themselves.

Release

Tag a version to trigger the GitHub Actions release workflow:

git tag v0.5.0
git push --tags

This builds worker.mjs and publishes it alongside mcp-deploy.json as release assets. mcp-deploy fetches these assets to deploy the worker.