zotero-mcp
Zotero MCP is a connector that lets Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI assistants search, read, and annotate a Zotero research library for researchers.
What it is good for
- Searching a research library by topic or meaning
- Summarizing and asking questions about research papers
- Adding papers and organizing collections and tags in Zotero
- Highlighting and annotating specific passages in PDFs
At a glance
- Who it is for
- Setup
- Guided command-line setup
Level 4 of 5. You copy and paste commands into a terminal by following the instructions. Comfortable territory for vibe coders.
- Cost
- Free and open source
- Type
- MCP server or connector
- Tasks
- Works with
- Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cherry Studio, Chorus, Cursor
Momentum
- Rank this week
- Not ranked yet
- Best rank
- None yet
- GitHub stars
- 5,693
GitHub numbers as of Nov 2, 2026. Updated weekly.
Official links
Setup steps are on the official pages. We do not repeat them here, since they change.
Questions
- Is zotero-mcp free?
- Yes. It is free and open source (MIT license).
- Do I need to know how to code to use zotero-mcp?
- You do not need to write code, but setup means copying and pasting commands into a terminal by following its instructions.
- What does zotero-mcp work with?
- According to its own documentation, it works with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cherry Studio, Chorus, and Cursor.
- What is zotero-mcp good for?
- Searching a research library by topic or meaning, summarizing and asking questions about research papers, adding papers and organizing collections and tags in Zotero, and highlighting and annotating specific passages in PDFs.
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