| name | search-papers |
| description | Semantic search over Zotero library (~441 economics/social science papers). Use when user needs to find papers, passages, or evidence on a topic. |
Search Papers
Run the search tool against the user's indexed Zotero library.
How to search
Run this command via Bash, substituting the query:
cd ~/zotero-rag && ~/.local/bin/uv run python search.py "QUERY" N
- Replace
QUERY with a descriptive search phrase (not just keywords; full semantic queries work best)
- Replace
N with the number of results (default 5, use 10-15 for broad surveys)
Interpreting results
Each result shows:
- Similarity score (0-1, higher is better; >0.6 is a strong match)
- Citation (authors, year, title)
- Section label from the paper
- Passage text (the matching chunk)
How to respond
- Run the search
- Read the results carefully
- Synthesize findings with proper citations (Author, Year)
- If results are poor, try rephrasing the query or using more specific/different terminology
- You may run multiple searches to triangulate across topics
If the index doesn't exist
If you get an error about missing collection, tell the user to run:
cd ~/zotero-rag && uv run python index.py
