Your Zotero library,
inside every AI
conversation.
Zoteus gives Claude, Cursor, and any MCP client safe access to your reference library — search papers, add by DOI, format bibliographies, and run semantic search over your own PDFs. With real citations, not hallucinations.
MIT-licensed · Local-first · No data leaves your machine
Find papers in my library arguing against open-plan offices and draft a paragraph citing them.
Several studies in your collection challenge the open-plan model. Bernstein & Turban (2018) found face-to-face interaction dropped ~70% after the switch (p. 4); Kim & de Dear (2013) link it to lower satisfaction with privacy and acoustics.
Bernstein, E. S., & Turban, S. (2018). The impact of the ‘open’ workspace… Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 373.
One command. Any MCP client.
Reads work key-free against the desktop app. Add a Zotero API key for writes, sync, and group libraries.
Claude Code
claude mcp add --transport stdio \ zoteus -- npx -y @oscardvs/zoteus
Any client (universal)
npx add-mcp @oscardvs/zoteus
Claude Desktop
Download zoteus.dxt from the latest release →
Your research lives in Zotero.
Your AI can’t see it.
Every new chat, you re-paste the same PDFs and re-explain your library from scratch — and when you ask for references, you get plausible, beautifully formatted, non-existent citations. Zoteus connects your actual library so your AI works from what you’ve already read and verified.
The everything server — your library as the source of truth.
Semantic search over your PDFs
Hybrid keyword + vector search across metadata, full text, and annotations — returned with page locators. Runs on local embeddings by default.
Real citations, not hallucinations
It surfaces your verified Zotero references and formats them with citeproc-js in ~2,800 CSL styles. It never invents a DOI.
Add by identifier
Drop a DOI, ISBN, PMID, or arXiv id — metadata fetched and filed.
Safe, reversible writes
Versioned, optimistic-locked, reversible trash by default, gated delete.
Local-first & private
Reads use the desktop local API; nothing leaves your machine by default.
Scholarly-context graph
Follow citations across OpenAlex and Crossref — plus MCP Resources, Prompts, and the code-execution pattern, built for agents.
Read the docsWhy Zoteus vs. the field
| Capability | Zoteus | Other Zotero MCP | Web AI tools |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operates on your own library | Yes | Partial | No |
| Web API v3 + desktop local API | Yes | partial | Not applicable |
| Safe, reversible writes | Yes | rare | No |
| CSL bibliographies (~2,800 styles) | Yes | rare | No |
| Local semantic search over PDFs | Yes | some | varies |
| No Python — TypeScript, one npx | Yes | varies | Not applicable |
| Local-first · Open-source (MIT) | Yes | varies | No |
Free forever. Hosted if you want it.
Self-hosted
Free
MIT-licensed. Run it yourself, forever.
- · Every feature, no paywall
- · Local-first, your own keys
- · Self-host the remote for a team
Hosted
€30/year
Managed, always-on connector. Sustains the project.
- · Zero setup — connect in claude.ai
- · Per-user Zotero login, encrypted
- · You keep your data & keys
Stop re-explaining your research.
Connect your Zotero library to your AI in under a minute. Open-source, local-first, free.