pyzotero-cli

What This Skill Does

The pyzotero-cli skill serves as a powerful interface between your OpenClaw AI agent and your Zotero reference management system. It provides comprehensive control over your academic and research library by wrapping the pyzotero library into a set of executable Python scripts. The skill supports two operating modes: Local API (for Zotero 7+ users wanting lightning-fast interaction with their desktop client) and Web API (for seamless cloud-based library management). Users can search for literature using keywords or full-text indexing, retrieve detailed item metadata, and perform complex collection management tasks like adding, removing, or re-organizing research items directly through natural language or automated workflows.

Installation

To integrate this skill into your environment, use the OpenClaw installer: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/killgfat/pyzotero

Ensure you have Python 3 installed. You must choose between local and online modes. For local mode, verify that 'Allow other applications to communicate with Zotero' is enabled in your Zotero 7+ Advanced settings. For online mode, obtain your API Key and User ID from the Zotero website settings. Export these as environment variables (ZOTERO_USER_ID, ZOTERO_API_KEY) to authorize your agent.

Use Cases

• Academic Research Automation: Automatically ingest new papers into specific Zotero collections based on AI-curated research topics.
• Library Cleanup: Use scripts to perform bulk operations, such as moving orphan items into structured project-specific folders.
• Meta-analysis Preparation: Quickly extract metadata and full-text snippets across large libraries to feed into RAG or analysis models.
• Reference Verification: Check for missing or duplicate entries in a bibliography by programmatic inspection of library items.

Example Prompts

1. "Find all papers in my 'Machine Learning' collection that mention 'attention mechanisms' in the full text and list their DOIs."
2. "Create a new Zotero collection named 'Q4 Project' and add the three most recent items I added to my library into it."
3. "Search for the paper titled 'Attention is All You Need' and provide me with the full metadata details including the publication year and authors."

Tips & Limitations

• Security: Always prefer Local Mode if you are worried about exposing API keys. Local Mode communicates strictly over localhost, reducing the risk of credential leakage.
• Performance: Full-text searching can be resource-intensive for very large libraries. If searching slows down your machine, restrict your queries to collections or specific metadata fields.
• Dependencies: Keep your local Zotero application updated to version 7+ to ensure the Local API remains compatible with the pyzotero library.