estravon-backend 0.1.6

Self-hosted PDF extraction backend for the Estravon Zotero plugin

estravon-backend

Self-hosted PDF extraction backend for the Estravon Zotero plugin.

Independent project. Estravon is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or in any way connected to the Zotero project or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Zotero is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

---

Extracts nominated sections of a book PDF to Markdown and attaches the result directly to the Zotero item — synced, versioned, always co-located with the source.

Just want to run it? Skip this page — follow the step-by-step guide at estravon.com/install instead. It covers pip install, virtual environments, and .env configuration without requiring a clone.

This README is for people who want to read the source, modify the backend, or run in editable mode.

---

Developer setup

git clone https://github.com/tiberavonltd/estravon-backend.git
cd estravon-backend

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate   # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate

pip install -e ".[dev]"

Create a .env file in the repo root and add your API key:

MISTRAL_API_KEY=your_key_here

Get a key at console.mistral.ai (~$0.002/page).

Start the backend:

estravon --port 7766

Run the test suite:

pytest

---

Supported extraction backends

Backend	Pricing	.env config
Mistral OCR	~$0.002/page, pay-as-you-go	MISTRAL_API_KEY=... (default)
Datalab	$25/month flat	DATALAB_API_KEY=... + _ZM_BACKEND=datalab
Replicate	Pay-as-you-go	REPLICATE_API_TOKEN=... + _ZM_BACKEND=replicate

---

Architecture

Zotero plugin  →  POST /process  →  run_extraction()
                                          ↓
                              MistralBackend | DatalabBackend | ReplicateBackend
                                          ↓
                                 result .md + images returned

The backend is a single-process FastHTML server. One job runs at a time; the plugin polls GET /jobs/{id} until the result is ready. GET /status exposes the current server state (idle / running / error).

---

Health check

curl http://localhost:7766/ping
# {"status":"ok","state":"idle","backend":"mistral"}

curl http://localhost:7766/status
# {"state":"idle","state_since_s":4.1,"backend":"mistral","last_job":{}}

---

Links

• Plugin repository
• End-user install guide
• estravon.com
• Report an issue

---

License

AGPL-3.0 — the same license as Zotero itself.