Routing
This page is about how the agent should interpret plain-language Zotero requests.
It is not a command catalog.
Route by user intent
| What the user says | What the agent should infer | What the reply should focus on |
|---|---|---|
| “Find papers in my Zotero library about reward hacking” | surface candidate items first | which items match and why |
| “Look up Smith2024” | direct citation-key lookup | metadata, citation, fallback state |
| “Show me the last 10 items added to the library” | recent-N enumeration | what was added recently, not keyword matches |
| “Pull the PDF annotations and notes for this paper” | evidence extraction for one item | metadata, children, annotations, missing capability |
| “Create an llm-safety workspace” | build a long-lived topic workspace | naming, import scope, index prerequisites |
| “Save this as a Zotero saved search” | store reusable search conditions | what conditions were saved |
| “Download attachment ATCH005” | local attachment download | which attachment, where it was saved |
| “Add a note to this item” | controlled mutation | what will change and whether write access exists |
| “Preview a merge for KEEP001 and DUPE001 first” | manual merge preview | what will be filled or moved, and when the write happens |
| “Show me the current config and default profile” | configuration inspection | effective config, default profile, missing pieces |
Quick rule of thumb
- one item or a few items: treat it as lookup or evidence extraction
- a long-lived topic set: treat it as a workspace request
- explicit “last 10” / “recent N” phrasing: treat it as
library recent --count - “save this filter” or “reuse this later”: treat it as a saved-search request
- “download the attachment”: treat it as an attachment task, not upload
- “preview this merge first”: treat it as
item merge, not immediate duplicate merge - any mutation: go through the safety gate first
- any “why is this broken?” question: start with doctor or config
When to run doctor first
Run doctor first when:
- this is a new environment
- the task will mutate the library
- the task depends on PDF / outline / annotation / attachment behavior
- the task needs semantic indexing or workspace query
- the task depends on citation-key lookup
- the user is troubleshooting configuration or profile state
Division of labor between skills and CLI docs
- Skills pages answer: “How should I ask, and how will the agent interpret it?”
- CLI pages answer: “What command and flags exist underneath?”
Read the skills pages first. Use the CLI pages as reference.