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dsh-zotero is a [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org) plugin designed for agent research workflows. Agents can search your library directly, view metadata and notes, extract evidence passages relevant to a question, open source PDFs, and generate citations and bibliographies.
## Tools
| Tool | Purpose |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `zotero_search` | Search by title/creator/year (library/collection/savedSearch/publications scopes); `everything` mode also searches indexed full text |
| `zotero_browse` | Discover library structure: libraries, the collection tree, saved searches, tag facets, item types and their fields |
| `zotero_get` | Read one item's metadata, optionally with notes, annotations, and attachments; `fields:"all"` keeps every field |
| `zotero_children` | Explore one item's child-object graph: direct notes, attachments, and the annotations that live under each PDF |
| `zotero_retrieve` | Return the most relevant evidence passages for a query; multi-attachment retrieval supported |
| `zotero_changes` | Incremental awareness via local transaction versions: what changed, what was deleted |
| `zotero_attachment` | Resolve a ref to a verified on-disk path or linked URL |
| `zotero_export` | Generate citations, bibliographies, BibTeX/BibLaTeX/RIS/CSL JSON |
[Full tool reference →](docs/tools.md)
## Install
```sh
dsh plugin --profile add dsh-zotero
```
From GitHub source:
```sh
dsh plugin --profile add github:Vncntvx/dsh-zotero
```
From a local tarball:
```sh
cd dsh-zotero && npm pack
dsh plugin --profile add ./dsh-zotero-*.tgz
```
After installing, start a new session so the agent picks up the Zotero tools.
The plugin provides a settings page under **Settings → Zotero** — a left-nav entry beside General, Models, and Plugins — where you can adjust the API address, concurrency limits, full-text retrieval toggle, and more. Changes take effect on save. See [Configuration](docs/configuration.md).
[Installation details →](docs/getting-started.md)
## Requirements
- Zotero ≥ 7 with local API enabled: **Settings → Advanced → "Allow other applications on this computer to communicate with Zotero"**
- Node.js ≥ 22.19 (or ≥ 24)
- dsh 0.1.7-rc.2 host (exactly this version: `engines.dsh` and every `@deepseek-ai/dsh-*` peer pin that exact version; no other dsh release is supported)
- Local API at `http://127.0.0.1:23119/api`, unauthenticated, read-only
## Usage example
The agent calls tools step by step during a conversation. Each result becomes context for the next step.
```text
User: Find papers about Risk
Agent → zotero_search(query: "Risk", itemTypes: ["journalArticle"])
5 matches; user picks the first 3
User: What does the first one's abstract say?
Agent → zotero_get(ref: "zotero://user/0/item/ABCD1234")
Returns the full abstract (the standard model carries it)
User: Find the methodology discussion in this paper
Agent → zotero_retrieve(ref: "zotero://user/0/item/ABCD1234", query: "methodology",
sources: ["fulltext", "note"])
Returns relevant passages with page numbers
User: Export all three as BibTeX
Agent → zotero_export(refs: ["zotero://user/0/item/ABCD1234",
"zotero://user/0/item/EFGH5678",
"zotero://user/0/item/IJKL9012"], format: "bibtex")
Generates BibTeX entries; the UI can download them, the model reads the same text
```
More examples in [Features](docs/features.md).
## Limits
- **Read-only library**: all operations are reads; items, notes, tags, and collections are unchanged
- **Loopback only**: network requests go only to `127.0.0.1:23119`
- **Evidence ranking is term-based**: BM25 ranks passages by query-term frequency match
- **Exports are static text**: the tool returns text, and that is what the model reads; the Zotero panel offers one-click copy or file download (`.bib`, `.ris`, `.json`), so nothing has to be retyped
- **Full-text evidence depends on Zotero's index**: unindexed PDFs yield no full-text passages
- **Attachment depth depends on the harness**: `zotero_attachment` returns the file location; reading the PDF further needs a matching host capability
## Permissions and external side effects
- **Network**: HTTP requests go only to `http://127.0.0.1:23119/api` (redirects are not followed); `resolveConfig` enforces a loopback address
- **Filesystem**: read-only — `zotero_attachment` verifies attachment paths with `existsSync`; no file writes
- **Persistence**: the only write comes from the Zotero settings page in the left navigation, saved to the `zotero:` user layer of `$DSH_HOME/settings.yaml`
- **No shell / native / background tasks**: the plugin runs no shell commands, loads no native modules, and starts no daemon
- **Restart**: after installing or removing the plugin, restart dsh and start a new session; configuration changes hot-reload on save without a restart
## Documentation
| Doc | Covers |
| ------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| [Getting Started](docs/getting-started.md) | Installation, prerequisites, first verification |
| [Features](docs/features.md) | Sources panel, chat integration, evidence, exports |
| [Tool Reference](docs/tools.md) | Parameters, return values, error codes for all 8 tools |
| [Configuration](docs/configuration.md) | 22 config fields, defaults, hot-reload |
| [Architecture](docs/architecture.md) | Data flow, layer responsibilities, design boundaries |
| [Development](docs/development.md) | Build, test, local development |
| [Troubleshooting](docs/troubleshooting.md) | 11 common issues with symptoms and fixes |
## Development
```sh
npm install # sibling of ../deepseek-harness; add --no-workspaces only for a nested copy
npm test # vitest unit tests against the mock Zotero server
npm run typecheck # tsc --noEmit for node, test, and client projects
npm run build # tsc emits node half into lib/; esbuild emits browser half lib/client.js
npm run dev # tsc --watch for host half hot reload
npm run dev:client # esbuild --watch for browser half hot reload
```
Build output splits into `lib/` (Node side) and `lib/client.js` (browser side — settings page + Zotero tab). For full plugin development with both halves, use the `dev-lib.cordis.yml` overlay. See [Development](docs/development.md) for details.
## License
[MIT](./LICENSE) — free to use, modify, and distribute.
