MCP Zotero (DEPRECATED)

This skill is deprecated. The Zotero MCP integration has been replaced by a local BibTeX pipeline that avoids database locking and sync conflicts.

Migration Guide

What Changed

• Before: Zotero MCP server (mcp-zotero ) interfaced with Zotero's local SQLite database

• After: references.bib is the canonical metadata store; PDFs/EPUBs live in library/pdfs/ , converted markdown in library/markdown/

How to Migrate

Export your Zotero library as BibTeX (File → Export Library → BibTeX)

Run the migration script:

python plugins/sociology-skillset/scripts/migrate-zotero.py
--bib exported.bib
--files ~/Zotero/storage
--output-dir .

This copies your PDFs/EPUBs to library/pdfs/ , converts them to markdown, and creates references.bib with pdf_path and md_path fields.

For new papers, use the ingest script instead of Zotero:

python plugins/sociology-skillset/scripts/ingest.py --file paper.pdf python plugins/sociology-skillset/scripts/ingest.py --file book.epub --doi 10.xxxx/xxxxx

What Replaces What

Before (Zotero MCP) After (Local Library)

search_items(query=...)

Search references.bib by author/title/year

get_item(item_key=...)

Look up entry in references.bib by citation key

download_attachments(...)

Read from library/pdfs/ directly

Zotero RAG semantic search uv run plugins/sociology-skillset/scripts/rag.py search "query"

add_item(...)

python ingest.py --file paper.pdf

Skills That Use the New Pipeline

All downstream skills (lit-synthesis , reading-agent , bibliography-builder , peer-reviewer , argument-builder ) now read from references.bib and library/ instead of calling Zotero MCP tools.

Legacy Files

The guides/ and references/ subdirectories in this skill are preserved for reference but are no longer maintained.