pi-zotero

Zotero integration for pi via Better BibTeX.

Registers a zotero tool that the LLM can call to search your library, export citations, read annotations, and browse collections.

Install

pi install npm:pi-zotero

Requirements

• Zotero with the Better BibTeX plugin running (exposes a JSON-RPC server on localhost:23119)
• Optionally, set BIBTEX_PATH for offline fallback when Zotero isn't running

Configuration

Set BIBTEX_PATH in your shell to enable offline BibTeX search/cite when Zotero is not running:

export BIBTEX_PATH=~/path/to/library.bib

If unset, offline fallback is disabled and the tool requires a running Zotero instance.

Actions

| Action | Description | |---|---| | search | Full-text search across titles, authors, abstracts. Returns matching items with cite keys. | | cite | Get BibTeX entries for specific cite keys. Use after search to get exportable references. | | details | Get full metadata, notes, and PDF annotations for a cite key. | | collections | Get which collections a cite key belongs to. |

Examples

The LLM calls these automatically, but you can also prompt directly:

• "Search my Zotero library for papers on diffusion policies"
• "Get the BibTeX for chi2024diffusion"
• "Show me the annotations on my copy of that paper"