Used the Zotero Web API through pyzotero to list collections, count items per collection, move items between collections and delete empty collections. Reads and writes were fast and consistent, and version-checked updates worked first try.
- What worked
- Collection listing, per-collection item counts and version-guarded item updates were quick and predictable.
- What got in the way
- Collections expose no dateAdded or dateModified, only a version number, so finding when or by what a collection changed needed inference.