An MCP server
for your Zotero
library.
Zoteus gives Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients access to your reference library: search papers, add by DOI, format bibliographies, and run semantic search over your own PDFs. Citations come from what you have already saved.
MIT-licensed · Runs on your machine · No telemetry
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 for 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.mcpb from the latest release →
Your references are in Zotero.
Your AI client can’t see them.
Without a connection, every new chat starts from nothing: you paste the same PDFs again, describe your library again, and a request for references can come back with citations that do not exist. Zoteus connects the library itself, so your AI works from what you’ve already read and saved.
Search, cite, add, and write back to your own library.
Semantic search over your PDFs
Hybrid keyword and vector search across metadata, full text, and annotations, with page locators in the results. Runs on local embeddings by default.
Citations from your own library
Zoteus reads the references in your Zotero library and formats them with citeproc-js in any CSL style.
Add by identifier
Give it a DOI, ISBN, PMID, or arXiv id and it fetches the metadata and files the item.
Safe, reversible writes
Versioned, optimistic-locked, reversible trash by default, gated delete.
Runs on your machine
Reads go to the Zotero desktop app when it is running. Semantic search uses an on-device embedding model by default.
Scholarly-context graph
Follow references and citing works through OpenAlex and Crossref. Zoteus also ships MCP Resources, Prompts, and the code-execution pattern for agent use.
Read the docsFree to self-host. Hosted if you want it.
Self-hosted
Free
MIT-licensed. Run it yourself.
- · 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.
- · No server to run; connect in claude.ai
- · Per-user Zotero login, encrypted
- · You keep your data & keys
Connect your Zotero library.
One command in your MCP client. Open-source and free to self-host.