zotero-pdf2zh-pro

Local Python server for the Zotero zotero-pdf2zh-pro plugin.

uv tool install --python 3.13 zotero-pdf2zh-pro
zotero-pdf2zh-pro

The default service URL is http://127.0.0.1:8890.

The server verifies HTTPS using the operating system's trusted certificates, including trusted proxy CAs on macOS and Windows. Certificate and hostname verification remain enabled. For Docker, install any required private CA in the container's trust store; the host's trust store is not inherited.

Model discovery

POST /list-models accepts apiUrl, optional apiKey, and optional apiProtocol (auto, chat_completions, or responses). It strips a recognized translation endpoint suffix and requests <base>/models, preserving custom paths and never adding /v1. A successful response is {"status":"ok","models":["model-id"]}; an empty list is valid.

Discovery uses a 15-second timeout and does not follow redirects, persist keys, or echo upstream response bodies in errors. Errors return status and message with HTTP 400 for invalid input, 502 for provider failures, or 504 for timeout. Clients should allow manual model entry on failure. /health advertises supportsModelDiscovery: true; existing translation endpoints are unchanged.

Translation protocols and request options

The optional llm_api.apiProtocol field accepts auto, chat_completions, or responses; llm_api.requestOptions accepts a JSON object of extra request parameters. /health advertises supportedApiProtocols, and /validate-config returns resolvedProtocol. Older servers support the Chat Completions fallback; Responses and extra request options require a compatible server update.

New task metrics omit cost. Token and upstream cache values may be null, with availability indicating unavailable, partial, or complete. Legacy cost fields are ignored when reading historical records.

Translation completeness and repair

Task details and SSE events expose translationSummary, failedParagraphs, and canRepair. The incomplete status indicates that paragraphs requiring translation are still unresolved. A terminal task with an existing PDF exposes canDownloadResult: true; its PDF can be downloaded and is automatically imported into Zotero with an incomplete label. Repair creates a new attachment and preserves previous versions and annotations. Older servers without this field retain the completed-only import behavior. Import retries do not trigger translation requests.

POST /tasks/{taskId}/repair accepts incomplete, completed, and cancelled tasks and returns the snapshot for the new attempt. Active tasks return HTTP 409. Repair preserves validated translations and requests the remaining paragraphs, using QPS 2 and concurrency 4 by default. Pure URL footnotes are preserved without translation; ordinary body text containing a URL still requires translation.

Paragraph checkpoints are stored in paragraph-recovery.sqlite3 inside the task directory, allowing repair after a server restart. Deleting a task also removes its checkpoints. JSON structure, paragraph IDs, nonempty translations, and placeholders are validated before translations are cached.

Runtime and data paths

Run zotero-pdf2zh-pro --help for supported options: --host, --port, --log-level, --data-dir, and --log-file. The default listener is 127.0.0.1:8890. /health reports the effective workspace.path, writability, free space, versions, and task counts. Inspect that path before backing up data or uninstalling; its location depends on the installation method.

The corresponding environment variables are PDF2ZH_HOST, PDF2ZH_PORT, PDF2ZH_LOG_LEVEL, PDF2ZH_DATA_DIR, and PDF2ZH_LOG_FILE. By default, task data is stored in translates alongside the installed server module. The optional log file rotates at 10 MiB with three backups.

For the Windows and macOS installation walkthrough, see the main tutorial.

On-demand glossary packs

The server manages optional English-to-Simplified-Chinese glossary packs under <effective-data-dir>/glossaries/. Installation packages contain catalog metadata only. Downloads and update checks are explicit actions from Zotero preferences; installed packs work offline. Each translation task stores the resolved terms and source versions, so retries and repairs survive pack updates or removal.

/health advertises capabilities.glossaryPacks. GET /glossaries is local-only; POST /glossaries/check-updates refreshes the catalog. Download, cancel and remove operations use /glossaries/<id>/download, /glossaries/<id>/cancel, and DELETE /glossaries/<id>. Translation requests may include glossaryPacks with id, version, and sha256 alongside custom glossaryEntries.

See glossary downloads for storage, API and merge rules, and glossary sources for attribution.

Task diagnostics and bounded cancellation

/health.capabilities advertises diagnosticsExport, boundedCancellation, and detailedTaskProgress. GET /diagnostics and GET /tasks/{taskId}/diagnostics return versioned, size-bounded, allowlisted JSON; they never export request payloads, paper content, keys or raw historical logs. Structured rotating logs live under <data-dir>/diagnostics/. The plugin combines this snapshot with its own records into a local ZIP.

Each attempt runs in a spawn process, contained by a POSIX process group or Windows Job Object. Cancellation escalates at 10/12 seconds and reports cleanup failure at 15 seconds rather than waiting indefinitely. A failed cleanup pauses the queue. Stalls alone only trigger diagnostics, never automatic cancellation. See the owning specification for fields, retention, recovery and acceptance.