Step 4: Install and configure Zotero MCP

4a. Install the package

uv tool install zotero-mcp-server

Verify the installation was successful:

zotero-mcp version

4b. Run the setup wizard

zotero-mcp setup

The wizard asks you a number of questions:

  • Access method: choose local (no API key needed, fully offline)
  • MCP client: choose Claude Desktop if you plan to install it later, or skip
  • Semantic search: you can skip this now and configure it later (see step 10)

Build the local search database (uses the free, locally running model all-MiniLM-L6-v2):

# Quick version (metadata only):
zotero-mcp update-db

# Extended version (including full text — recommended):
zotero-mcp update-db --fulltext

Note: The --fulltext option takes longer but gives much better search results. On an M4 Mac mini with an average-sized library this takes 5–20 minutes.

Check the status of the database:

zotero-mcp db-status