Summary
qmode is the whole search interface, and choosing the wrong value for it is why a search comes back empty.
'titleCreatorYear' is for known-item lookup, when you roughly remember the title or who wrote it; 'everything' widens into abstracts and beyond, which is what a topic search needs. The search returns summaries by design and names its two follow-ups, so metadata and full text are deliberate second calls rather than everything arriving at once. The citation key coming back with the metadata is the detail that makes this useful for writing rather than only for finding.
What it is
A Zotero client with three tools — search the library under a chosen query mode, read one item's complete metadata, and read its full text.
What you get
- zotero_search_items searches the library and returns a summary per match, with qmode choosing between 'titleCreatorYear', the default, which searches titles, creator names and years, and 'everything', which additionally searches abstracts and more; a tag filter and a limit narrow it further.
- zotero_item_metadata returns an item's complete metadata by item key, including its citation key, publication details, identifiers and timestamps.
- zotero_item_fulltext returns the full text of an item, taking the key of a parent item or of a specific attachment.
Requirements
A Zotero library the server can read.
Setup effort
One command plus a key — uvx zotero-mcp, then supply credentials