Getting started

Requirements

zotgo drives the running Zotero 7+ desktop app over HTTP. It has no offline/SQLite mode by design — reaching into an application's database is the architecture it exists to avoid. Reads go through Zotero's Local API, which is off by default; zot doctor checks for it and tells you how to turn it on.

Reads and connector ingestion work on Zotero 7.0 and up. The write commands need Zotero 10.0 or newer: the local write API arrived in 10.0, and 7, 8 and 9 do not have it in any form. On an older build zot doctor shows write as unsupported and zot grant refuses with that reason, so the limitation surfaces before you rely on it rather than partway through a write.

Zoteroreads, export, connector ingestionwrites
7.0 – 9.xyesno
10.0+yesyes

Install

go install github.com/CameronBrooks11/zotgo/cmd/zot@latest

Or download a prebuilt binary for your platform from the Releases page — no runtime, no dependencies, just an executable.

Check your setup

zot doctor

zot doctor — checking the local endpoint at http://localhost:23119

  ✓ Zotero running  (v9.0.4)
  ✓ Local API enabled  (schema 42, API v3)

Capabilities:
  ✓ read
  ✗ write              this Zotero build has no local write API (added upstream in zotero/zotero#5015; update Zotero once a release ships it)
  ✓ connector-ingest
  ✓ local-file-access

Libraries:
  My Library          files ✓
  Biological Reactor  files ✗  attachments not accepted

Ready. zotgo can read your library.

doctor reports what the endpoint can do, not merely whether it answers. Every unsupported capability carries its reason, so there is always something to act on. zot --json doctor reports the same under data.capabilities, and exits non-zero when Zotero is unreachable — so a script can branch on the exit status without parsing the payload.

The Libraries section (local endpoint only) reports, per library you can file into, whether it accepts attachment files. This is independent of the endpoint-level local-file-access capability: a group library can be writable yet have file storage disabled, so local-file-access ✓ while a specific library is files ✗. That is why a library can silently never gain attachments. It appears under data.libraries in --json.

If the Local API is off, doctor prints the exact steps to enable it: Zotero → Settings → Advanced → General → "Allow other applications on this computer to communicate with Zotero".

Next steps