Upgrade Storage[New Plugin] Zusia: ask Claude Code, Codex or Antigravity about the paper you're reading (Zot 7–10)
Hi everyone,
I'm Andrea, a master's student from Italy. I built Zusia for my own interests and I'd like to share it here.
Zusia adds a chat pane to Zotero's item sidebar, next to the PDF you have open. You can ask about the paper, select a passage and ask about that, or attach the page you're looking at and ask about a figure.
The problem it solves is small but constant: I would hit a theorem that assumed something it never explained, switch to a separate chat window, paste the statement, paste the notation, paste the paragraph before it so the question made sense — and lose my place in the paper every time.
WHAT IT DOES
• LaTeX answers — rendered with KaTeX, so real mathematics instead of plain-text approximations
• Navigable proofs — definitions, lemmas and theorems arrive as numbered boxes, and every cross-reference is a clickable link with a Back shortcut
• Explain this / Ask about this — select text in the PDF reader; each one is saved under the paper and findable later
• Figures — attach the current PDF page and ask what a figure shows
• Notes — save any answer or drawing as a Zotero note on the item
• Search — across the chats of every paper in your library
• Explain better — one button under each answer, re-answers with the intuition first, then steps and an example
HOW IT CONNECTS TO THE ASSISTANT
Zusia does not take an API key and does not talk to any server of mine. It drives a command-line assistant you have already installed and signed into on your own machine: Claude Code, Codex, or Antigravity. Everything runs locally under your own account.
PRIVACY
The assistant receives the item's metadata and your own annotations. It does not receive the full text of the PDF. Images are sent only when you explicitly attach a page or a screenshot. Chats, saved clarifications and images live in a zusia folder inside your Zotero data directory, and nothing is transmitted anywhere else.
REQUIREMENTS AND LIMITATIONS
• You need one of the three CLIs installed and signed in before installing the plugin. That means a terminal step, and it will rule the plugin out for some people. I'd rather say so here than have you find out halfway through setup.
• The demo recordings are on macOS. It should work on Windows and Linux, but I have not tested those properly, and I'd be grateful to anyone willing to try.
• I have tested it almost entirely on mathematics and machine-learning papers, because that is what I read. I don't yet know how it behaves on humanities or medical literature, and I'd like to know.
INSTALL
1. Install and sign into one assistant CLI: Claude Code, Codex or Antigravity
2. Download zusia.xpi from the latest release
3. In Zotero: Tools → Plugins → gear icon → Install Plugin From File
4. Open a paper. A setup wizard runs the first time.
Updates arrive through Zotero's normal update feed afterwards.
LINKS
GitHub, with demo recordings: https://github.com/firekern/zusia
Download: https://github.com/firekern/zusia/releases/latest
MIT licensed. Happy to answer questions about how any of it works.
On overlap: I've seen Zoteus mentioned here, which connects an assistant to your whole library. Zusia is deliberately narrower — scoped to the one paper in front of you, with the work going into rendering: maths, diagrams and navigable proofs. Different problems, and I don't think they compete. Basically, It's only for studying and for those who are bored of the continuous alt + tab cntr c cntr v.
Feedback and bug reports very welcome, here or as GitHub issues.
I'm Andrea, a master's student from Italy. I built Zusia for my own interests and I'd like to share it here.
Zusia adds a chat pane to Zotero's item sidebar, next to the PDF you have open. You can ask about the paper, select a passage and ask about that, or attach the page you're looking at and ask about a figure.
The problem it solves is small but constant: I would hit a theorem that assumed something it never explained, switch to a separate chat window, paste the statement, paste the notation, paste the paragraph before it so the question made sense — and lose my place in the paper every time.
WHAT IT DOES
• LaTeX answers — rendered with KaTeX, so real mathematics instead of plain-text approximations
• Navigable proofs — definitions, lemmas and theorems arrive as numbered boxes, and every cross-reference is a clickable link with a Back shortcut
• Explain this / Ask about this — select text in the PDF reader; each one is saved under the paper and findable later
• Figures — attach the current PDF page and ask what a figure shows
• Notes — save any answer or drawing as a Zotero note on the item
• Search — across the chats of every paper in your library
• Explain better — one button under each answer, re-answers with the intuition first, then steps and an example
HOW IT CONNECTS TO THE ASSISTANT
Zusia does not take an API key and does not talk to any server of mine. It drives a command-line assistant you have already installed and signed into on your own machine: Claude Code, Codex, or Antigravity. Everything runs locally under your own account.
PRIVACY
The assistant receives the item's metadata and your own annotations. It does not receive the full text of the PDF. Images are sent only when you explicitly attach a page or a screenshot. Chats, saved clarifications and images live in a zusia folder inside your Zotero data directory, and nothing is transmitted anywhere else.
REQUIREMENTS AND LIMITATIONS
• You need one of the three CLIs installed and signed in before installing the plugin. That means a terminal step, and it will rule the plugin out for some people. I'd rather say so here than have you find out halfway through setup.
• The demo recordings are on macOS. It should work on Windows and Linux, but I have not tested those properly, and I'd be grateful to anyone willing to try.
• I have tested it almost entirely on mathematics and machine-learning papers, because that is what I read. I don't yet know how it behaves on humanities or medical literature, and I'd like to know.
INSTALL
1. Install and sign into one assistant CLI: Claude Code, Codex or Antigravity
2. Download zusia.xpi from the latest release
3. In Zotero: Tools → Plugins → gear icon → Install Plugin From File
4. Open a paper. A setup wizard runs the first time.
Updates arrive through Zotero's normal update feed afterwards.
LINKS
GitHub, with demo recordings: https://github.com/firekern/zusia
Download: https://github.com/firekern/zusia/releases/latest
MIT licensed. Happy to answer questions about how any of it works.
On overlap: I've seen Zoteus mentioned here, which connects an assistant to your whole library. Zusia is deliberately narrower — scoped to the one paper in front of you, with the work going into rendering: maths, diagrams and navigable proofs. Different problems, and I don't think they compete. Basically, It's only for studying and for those who are bored of the continuous alt + tab cntr c cntr v.
Feedback and bug reports very welcome, here or as GitHub issues.