Access 'Zotero' Libraries

Interface to the 'Zotero' reference manager < https://www.zotero.org> through its public web API and local client database. Provides paginated reads, versioned writes, read-only local queries, batch plans and resumable ledgers, bibliographic comparison, metadata mapping, file attachment, and optional semantic-index queries.

zot

zot provides an R interface to the Zotero Web API, read-only queries over a local Zotero database, batch-plan execution, bibliographic comparison, and selected external integrations.

The public documentation is available at https://averriK.github.io/zot/.

Installation

Install the released package from CRAN:

install.packages("zot")

Configuration

zotConfig() accepts a Zotero user identifier and API key explicitly:

library(zot)

Config <- zotConfig(
  userID = "42",
  key = "example-key"
)

With no arguments, it reads ZOTERO_LIBRARY_ID and ZOTERO_API_KEY from the process environment:

Config <- zotConfig()

A non-interactive caller reads no shell profile, so an Rscript job started by cron, make, or an external tool takes both variables from ~/.Renviron, the file R reads at startup in every session.

Printing the object omits the API key. The default library = "user" selects the configured personal library; numeric group identifiers are passed through the library argument of the relevant functions.

This explicit configuration interface is suitable for interactive sessions, scripts, automated jobs, and agent-driven workflows. The package does not select an authorization policy for its callers.

Data sources

The package exposes three read paths:

Source	Entry points	Characteristics
Local Zotero database	`zotLocalItems()`, `zotLocalQuery()`	Read-only SQLite queries; may lag remote state
Semantic index	`ztSemantic()`	Optional query through the companion Python environment
Zotero Web API	`zotGet()`, `zotGetAll()`, `ztCensus()`	Current remote records and response metadata

For example, a local query does not modify the Zotero database:

Items <- zotLocalItems(library = "user")
Items[, .(key, itemType, title)]

A paginated API request uses the configured user library:

Path <- paste0(zotLibraryPath(Config), "/items/top")
Items <- zotGetAll(Config, path = Path, query = list(format = "json"))

Curation plans

Plan builders return data.table objects without executing the represented changes. This example normalizes copy suffixes and file extensions in titles:

library(data.table)

Items <- data.table(
  itemKey = c("A", "B"),
  library = "user",
  title = c("Reviewed book (1).pdf", "Existing title")
)

Plan <- ztRetitle(Items, transform = ztCleanTitle)
Preview <- zotPreview(Plan, describe = "Normalize reviewed titles")
Preview

Other functions build collection-membership plans, compare possible duplicate records, map Crossref metadata, and divide cross-library moves into create and Trash phases.

Batch execution

zotPreview() validates a plan, copies it, and records its digest. zotApprove() creates a record containing that digest and optional notes. zotExecute() requires matching preview and approval digests, applies rows, and writes a resumable ledger. zotVerify() samples completed patch rows and compares their requested fields with current API data.

Approval <- zotApprove(Preview, notes = "Reviewed batch")

Ledger <- zotExecute(
  Config,
  preview = Preview,
  approval = Approval,
  ledgerPath = "zot-ledger.json"
)

zotVerify(Config, preview = Preview, ledger = Ledger)

An approval object is an application record, not an authentication mechanism. Callers should treat a preview as immutable after approval; the current executor compares stored digests and does not recalculate the digest from a modified preview$plan.

The package also exports functions with immediate external effects, including zotPost(), zotPatch(), zotTrash(), ztCollectionTree(), and ztAttach(). Callers are responsible for deciding when those operations are appropriate.

External integrations

ztCrossref() maps DOI metadata into a Zotero item payload. ztAttach() implements Zotero's file-upload protocol and verifies the stored MD5 after an upload. ztSemantic() queries an optional Chroma index produced by the companion zotero-mcp-server installation; it does not create or refresh that index.

See vignette("zot", package = "zot") for an introductory workflow, vignette("guarded-workflow", package = "zot") for an offline batch example, and vignette("external-integrations", package = "zot") for dependency and effect details.