Cite Caddy

A reference-library bridge for AI assistants — a standalone, remote MCP server.

Independent, unofficial project. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Corporation for Digital Scholarship (Zotero) — see Zotero's trademark policy. Built on the Zotero Web API; today's backend is Zotero, but the name and tool surface are meant to support others later.

Cite Caddy gives full read/write access to a Zotero library — search, add, tag, update, delete, and move items; create, rename, and delete collections; upload/download attachments and read their extracted full text; read and write item notes; manage tags, trash, and saved searches library-wide; and look up Zotero's own item-type/field schema. 36 tools total — see Tools below for the full list.

Why this exists

Read-only tools that match findings against a Zotero library (e.g. by DOI/arXiv ID) can safely stop at reporting — they never need to write anything back. This project goes further on purpose: full CRUD against a Zotero library, including delete and move, so that tagging, adding, and cleaning up items can be automated too.

That's a deliberate scope choice, and it comes with a real risk: any write that changes an existing item's key (delete, move to another library, "clean library" reset) breaks Word documents that cite it via the Zotero Word plugin's live field codes — see "Key safety" below before touching delete/move.

Key safety (read this before implementing delete/move)

Any Zotero item cited in a Word document via the Zotero Word plugin is referenced by that item's key, embedded in a live field code. Operations that preserve an item's key (create, update fields, add/remove tags, add notes) are safe. Operations that don't (delete, and library-to-library move, which Zotero implements as delete+recreate) will break those citations silently — the Word document won't error, it'll just show stale/broken field text next time someone updates fields or opens Zotero the next time.

Full CRUD was chosen deliberately for this project despite that risk. When implementing delete/move tools:

• Make the destructive intent obvious in the tool name and docstring (an MCP client's model reads both before calling), not just in this README.
• Consider requiring the caller to pass back the item's current Zotero version (optimistic concurrency) so a delete/update can't silently clobber a change made concurrently from the Zotero desktop app or another client.
• A dry-run / confirmation step for delete is worth considering, but is an implementation decision for whoever builds that tool, not decided here.

Configuration

stdio mode (local, single-user — no $PORT): the library to connect to comes from env vars.

ZOTERO_LIBRARY_ID      numeric library ID (user or group)
ZOTERO_LIBRARY_TYPE    "user" or "group" (default: user)
ZOTERO_API_KEY         from Zotero -> Settings -> Security -> Applications
                        (needs write permission, not just read)

HTTP mode (remote, multi-tenant — $PORT set): there's no single configured library — each caller brings their own Zotero Library ID/Type/API Key via the /login form (see "Deployment" below). Instead:

MCP_TOKEN_STORE_KEY    Fernet key encrypting onboarded tenants' API keys at
                        rest; generate once at deploy time with:
                        python -c "from cryptography.fernet import Fernet; print(Fernet.generate_key().decode())"
MCP_PUBLIC_URL          public HTTPS URL this server is reachable at
MCP_DATA_DIR            where OAuth clients/tokens/tenants persist (default: ./.data)

Optional in either mode:

MCP_WEBSITE_URL         public site reported as serverInfo.website_url; also used to
                        build serverInfo.icons[0].src as MCP_WEBSITE_URL + "icons/icon.svg"
                        (that file must actually be served there). Left unset, both
                        fields are simply omitted.

Deployment

Ships as its own Docker container (docker-compose.yml), meant to sit behind a reverse proxy that terminates TLS and forwards to the container's port on localhost. Remote/hosted by default, not a local stdio server — an MCP client just points at the URL, nothing to install or run locally.

Access is gated by a real OAuth 2.1 authorization server built into the app itself (app/oauth_provider.py), not HTTP Basic Auth in front of it. This is a deliberate design choice: Claude Desktop/claude.ai's "Add custom connector" UI is OAuth-first — it always tries the OAuth discovery + authorization-code dance against a new server, so a plain 401 in front of the server (as Basic Auth would produce) gets read as "this server needs OAuth" and fails once it hits a nonexistent /authorize endpoint. Implementing a real (if minimal) OAuth server is what makes "Add custom connector" work.

Multi-tenant and self-service: /authorize doesn't delegate to a third-party identity provider — it shows a first-party login form asking for a Zotero Library ID, Library Type, and API Key. Submitting the form validates the key directly against the Zotero API; a successful validation both grants access and registers ("onboards") that library as a tenant of this server, all in one step — there's no separate sign-up and no admin approval. Any MCP client can dynamically register itself (RFC 7591), but completing the login form with a working Zotero key is what actually gates access. Each caller's tool calls are then routed to their own Zotero library, not a shared one. See app/oauth_provider.py's module docstring for the full flow. Registered clients, issued tokens, and onboarded tenants' credentials (API keys encrypted at rest with MCP_TOKEN_STORE_KEY) persist to MCP_DATA_DIR (a Docker volume) so redeploys don't log connected clients out or forget onboarded tenants.

.env on the host (not in this repo) holds MCP_TOKEN_STORE_KEY/ MCP_PUBLIC_URL, consumed via docker-compose.yml's env_file:. ZOTERO_LIBRARY_ID/ZOTERO_LIBRARY_TYPE/ZOTERO_API_KEY are not needed for the HTTP deployment — those only apply to stdio mode.

.github/workflows/deploy.yml automates redeploying to an already set-up host: manual trigger only (workflow_dispatch, never on push), runs the test suite first, then syncs the repo over SSH and rebuilds the container. It needs its own GitHub Actions secrets for the deploy SSH key and target host/port/user — see the workflow file for the full list. Use a dedicated deploy key (not whatever key you use for direct/manual access), so it can be revoked independently if it ever leaks.

Tools

Read-only: search_items, get_item, list_collections, list_tags, list_trash, list_saved_searches, list_groups, list_item_types, list_item_fields, list_item_type_fields, list_item_creator_types, list_attachments, get_fulltext, download_attachment, list_notes. list_groups lists the groups the configured API key's account belongs to; its id doubles as target_library_id (with target_library_type="group") for move_item_to_different_library. list_item_type_fields/list_item_creator_types describe what create_item/update_item will actually accept for a given item_type -- check them instead of guessing when a validation error comes back. search_items' query defaults to Zotero's quick search (title/creator/year); pass full_text=True to also match the indexed content of attached files and notes (Zotero's qmode="everything"), requiring a non-empty query.

Safe, key-preserving writes: create_item, create_collection, create_saved_search, update_collection, update_item, add_tags/remove_tags/set_tags, rename_tag, add_to_collection/remove_from_collection, trash_item, restore_from_trash, upload_attachment, create_note, update_note. trash_item is a reversible soft delete (undo with restore_from_trash) -- unlike delete_item_permanently below, it doesn't break Word citations unless the item is later permanently deleted or the trash is emptied.

Destructive (see "Key safety" above): delete_item_permanently, move_item_to_different_library, delete_collection, delete_tag, delete_saved_search. The first three require the item's/collection's current Zotero version (get it from search_items/get_item/list_collections first) and refuse the call if it doesn't match the server's current version, rather than silently overwriting a concurrent change. delete_collection cascades to any sub-collections (matching Zotero's own "Delete Collection" behavior) but never deletes the items filed in them. rename_tag/delete_tag act on every item in the library carrying that tag, not just one -- there's no per-tag version to check, since tags aren't standalone versioned entities in Zotero's API. delete_saved_search is destructive but low-risk: a saved search is just a stored filter, so deleting one never touches items or citations.

Attachment file content (upload_attachment's content_base64 argument, download_attachment's content_base64 result) travels base64-encoded — this server is remote and has no access to the caller's local filesystem, so raw bytes can't be passed as a local path the way pyzotero itself expects.

Testing

uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

Tests never call a live Zotero library, even if .env has real credentials: app/zotero_service.py (all Zotero read/write logic) is exercised against tests/fakes.py's in-memory FakeZotero, and app/mcp_server.py's tool functions are tested directly against a ZoteroService backed by that fake (see configure_service()).

Status

v1.5 — deployed and in active use, with full CRUD coverage of the Zotero Web API's item/collection/tag/trash/saved-search/schema surface (36 tools; see Tools). Add it as a remote MCP connector directly (e.g. Claude Desktop/claude.ai's "Add custom connector" with just the server's public URL) — the OAuth flow described above prompts for your own Zotero Library ID/Type/API Key in-browser, no manually-configured headers needed, and no admin sign-up step.

Listed in the official MCP Registry as dk.herbertkokholm.citecaddy/cite-caddy — metadata lives in server.json, published via mcp-publisher and DNS-verified against citecaddy.herbertkokholm.dk. Not (yet) part of GitHub's separate, manually-curated github.com/mcp directory, which doesn't sync automatically from the open registry.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Security

See SECURITY.md for the threat model and how to report a vulnerability.

License

MIT