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.

Reading memory and short text (since v1.8.0)

POST /translation-lookup accepts documentFingerprint (the original PDF SHA-256), text, optional one-based page, side (source by default, or translation), and optional targetLang. It returns matched: false, or matched: true with matchType (exact / contained), source, translation, page, paragraphId, targetLang, and fromTranslationMemory: true. A contained match returns the whole paragraph, not word alignment. The route never constructs or calls a provider.

translation-memory.sqlite3 lives directly in the configured data directory. Completed PDF outputs sync succeeded, nonempty, quality-approved-or-unrejected paragraphs from their task checkpoint. Corrected text replaces earlier text. Existing completed/incomplete task checkpoints are also read at startup; deleting a task does not remove memory. Legacy placeholders that cannot be restored are replaced with ⟦原排版内容⟧ and flagged with formattingIncomplete: true; their prose still matches without a provider call. The recovery database remains exclusively the task retry checkpoint.

POST /translate-text accepts text, optional context (up to 12,000 characters), documentFingerprint, one-based page, source, target, mode (lookup, translate, explain), service, llm_api, and glossaryEntries. The first two modes check memory and glossary before cached results or a provider. Explicit explain requests may use a provider even on a memory hit; the real stored paragraph pair supplies the context. No PDF task or font preparation is created.

Optional selectionProvider is profile (legacy default) or bing; optional memoryPolicy is paragraph (legacy default) or exact. With exact, contained memory does not stop translation; clients can retain it separately as folded reference. The Reader explicitly sends both fields.

Bing requires no model configuration or key, and sends only selected text and language pair to https://www.bing.com/ttranslatev3 after obtaining session parameters from https://www.bing.com/translator. It splits losslessly at UTF-8 boundaries up to 1,000 bytes (within the web translator’s 1,000-character limit), prefers sentence/whitespace boundaries, and starts at most one request per second across workers. The whole translation has a 45-second deadline. Quota errors (provider_quota, 429), invalid/empty responses and timeouts are not cached; partial translations never count as success. There is no automatic fallback to the model. Free-service cache keys contain only selected text, language and provider; no paper context or credentials are sent.

The profile text provider supports Codex and existing presets resolving to OpenAISettings, including Chat Completions and Responses. A fixed API protocol needs no health-check request; auto negotiates only when a model request is actually needed. Responses contain translation or explanation, provider, model when available, and cached. Errors have a fixed code: empty_text, invalid_request, invalid_config, unsupported_selection_provider, provider_timeout (504), provider_error / empty_output (502), or selection_busy (429). Requests wait at most 45 seconds; an already-running HTTP operation may finish later, with at most two worker requests active. Duplicate in-flight requests share work, except individually cancellable Codex requests described below. A 128-entry, one-hour memory cache fronts selection-cache.sqlite3 in the server data directory. Persistent translation/context results are capped at 20,000 least-recently-used entries; personal word entries never expire. Only result data, digests and timestamps are stored, not credentials or raw provider configuration. Model translation keys include context and output-affecting options; context/explanation keys additionally include the document fingerprint.

Generating Codex profile requests may include a unique requestId containing 16–128 URL-safe letters, digits, underscores or hyphens. The plugin generates a cryptographically random ID and sends POST /cancel-text with {"requestId": "..."} when the selection closes, is replaced, or reaches its HTTP deadline. Cancellation returns {"status": "ok", "cancelled": true} when marked; already finished requests return cancelled: false. A cancellation that arrives before generation is retained for up to 60 seconds (at most 128 recent IDs). Active and recently completed duplicate IDs return duplicate_request_id (409); invalid or non-Codex IDs on generation return invalid_request_id (400). Cancelled generation returns selection_cancelled (409). These requests use separate turns, interrupt the matching Codex generation, and check cancellation before saving results. Existing clients without request IDs remain compatible.

mode: dictionary returns entry (headword, senses, optional usage, aiGenerated), a plain-text translation, model provenance, createdAt, formatVersion and saved. It requires a short selection (at most 3 words / 100 characters). Its key preserves case and includes only the normalized selection, language pair and schema/prompt version, allowing reuse across papers and models. mode: context requires nonempty document fingerprint and surrounding context different from the selection; it bypasses document memory and uses the current model. Both modes require selectionProvider: profile.

allowGenerate: false performs a read-only cache lookup, returning status: miss without invoking any provider. cachePolicy: refresh bypasses saved results, memory and glossary; successful results replace the corresponding cache entry, failures preserve the prior entry. Repeated concurrent refreshes share work, and older results cannot overwrite newer refreshes or repopulate cleared caches. saved: false indicates the result is usable but could not be persisted.

POST /selection-capabilities returns selectionLearning: true; the same capability is advertised by /health. New clients verify it before using these fields. POST /selection-cache/clear clears translation/context caches but preserves personal dictionary entries and document memory. Existing request modes remain supported. Empty/invalid AI dictionary output is rejected as invalid_output; missing usable context is context_unavailable.

Reader usage and manual verification: user guide.

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.

Codex CLI provider

/health.capabilities.codexCli: true means this server includes the adapter; it does not mean the CLI is installed, signed in, or permitted to use a particular model. The first supported CLI version is 0.153.4. Install and sign in separately as the same operating-system user that runs the Python service. macOS and Windows are the initial manual acceptance targets; Docker does not include Codex or a login.

Use service: "codex" with llm_api.model (default gpt-6-luna), optional llm_api.cliPath, and optional llm_api.reasoningEffort. An omitted effort uses the model default, while "none" is an explicit effort. The provider uses Standard speed; API keys, API URLs, Responses options and OpenAI reasoning switches do not configure this provider. Profiles keep an explicit model; unavailable models fail with an actionable error instead of silently selecting a different one.

POST /list-models also accepts {"service":"codex","cliPath":"codex"}. It returns models plus modelDetails, whose entries contain id, displayName, defaultReasoningEffort, and supportedReasoningEfforts (an array of strings). Catalog visibility is not proof of account entitlement. Discovery performs no generation. /validate-config checks readiness without a model call when liveTest: false; liveTest: true performs one short translation and reports its result through the existing liveTest and diagnostics fields. resolvedProtocol is null for Codex.

Codex profiles also accept llm_api.proxyMode: inherit (default), manual, or direct. In manual mode llm_api.proxyUrl is an HTTP(S) proxy URL with no credentials, path, query or fragment; for example http://127.0.0.1:7897. Use the HTTP/Mixed listener of a local proxy application, not a SOCKS-only port. /list-models accepts the same proxyMode and proxyUrl fields at the top level. /health.capabilities.codexProxy and /selection-capabilities.codexProxy advertise support, so clients can refuse unsupported explicit proxy choices on older servers.

Only the app-server child environment changes: manual mode sets both cases of HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY and ALL_PROXY, and replaces NO_PROXY with loopback hosts; direct mode removes inherited proxy addresses and sets NO_PROXY to * in both cases. Inherit mode preserves the service environment as it was at startup. The parent service and system settings are untouched. Clients are shared only within the same process, CLI path and proxy configuration; changing proxy starts an independent connection without interrupting other configurations' requests. Proxy changes do not invalidate translation caches. Invalid settings produce codex_invalid_proxy with a fixed message that does not echo the supplied URL.

Each client lazily shares an owned stdio app-server, bounded to two active generations. Requests use isolated temporary conversations. Only completed final answers enter output validation and caching. Cancellation interrupts the turn; an unresponsive owned process is recycled. The adapter never copies login tokens or closes the shared client after a selection request. Context/dictionary output uses the same structured validators as other profile providers, and selection cache identity includes the model and reasoning effort.

Normal server shutdown and SIGTERM cancel selection work and close owned Codex clients before exiting. On Windows each app-server belongs to a kill-on-close Job Object, so forced termination of the Python service also stops its owned Codex process tree.

Codex selection failures return a safe code and fixed local message, including codex_not_installed, codex_incompatible, codex_not_logged_in, codex_model_unavailable, codex_invalid_reasoning, codex_isolation_failed, codex_timeout, codex_process_exited, codex_protocol_error, codex_quota_exhausted, and codex_request_failed. Full-document/configuration errors contain a safe explanation. Ambiguous failures are not automatically replayed. Token usage is reported when supplied by the CLI and otherwise remains unknown.

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.

Provider audit and configuration schema v2

The plugin exposes 19 providers. openaicompatible, tencentmechinetranslation, and dify are removed. Explicit unknown or removed service IDs return a validation error; they cannot select the free default engine. Omitting service on legacy PDF/validation requests still selects siliconflowfree.

POST /list-models accepts service (openai by default), apiUrl, apiKey, and apiProtocol. Supported HTTP catalogs: OpenAI, DeepSeek, Gemini, Grok, Groq, and SiliconFlow. SiliconFlow requests include sub_type=chat. Provider URLs are used only when a named preset omits the URL; explicit custom URLs are kept. Codex discovery remains an app-server operation.

Azure Translator accepts llm_api.azureRegion: absent retains chinaeast2, empty omits the region header. SDK 2.0 handles global endpoints; the documented sovereign endpoints retain the v3 wire format. Azure OpenAI uses /openai/v1 and a deployment name, with no forced sampling parameters. An explicit extraData.azure_openai_api_version retains the legacy Azure client.

See the dated audit for official sources, profile and backup removal rules, offline contracts, and live acceptance steps.