Skip to content

Paper Detail

Clicking any paper in the Research Feed, Library, or elsewhere in the application opens its Paper Detail view at /paper/:paperId. This is the primary research workspace for a single paper.

The view is divided into three panes: a collapsible left table-of-contents rail, a scrollable centre content area with all paper sections, and a right-hand actions rail.

Left pane — Table of contents

The left pane shows a table of contents that lists every section available for this paper. Clicking a section entry scrolls the centre pane to that section. A scroll-spy indicator highlights the currently visible section as you scroll.

The TOC also shows the pipeline status for this paper:

Indicator Meaning
PDF downloaded The source PDF has been fetched and stored
Source Passages The PDF text has been split into passages for retrieval
Summary The AI summary has been generated
Failed One or more pipeline steps encountered an error

If a step is pending or failed, the corresponding action button in the right pane will be active to let you re-trigger that step.

Centre pane — Paper sections

The centre pane scrolls through all sections of the paper in order.

TL;DR + confidence

A one-to-three sentence summary of the paper, generated by the LLM pipeline, together with a confidence badge that indicates how reliably the summary reflects the source text (based on chunk coverage and model certainty).

Metadata

Title, authors, publication date, and source (arXiv, Semantic Scholar, etc.).

Brief

The paper's abstract or a short machine-generated overview, formatted as plain text.

Detailed summary

A structured Markdown summary of the paper covering its contributions, methods, and results. Generated during the Summarise pipeline step.

Methodology

A focused section on the paper's methods, extracted during the processing pipeline.

Limitations

Limitations and caveats noted by the paper or inferred by the analysis pipeline.

Key findings

A list of key findings and evidence items extracted from the paper. A snapshot shows the most important findings inline; a full structured list provides every finding with source-chunk references.

PDF Reader

An in-page PDF reader that renders the source PDF and lets you annotate it with spatial highlights. The reader becomes available once the PDF has been downloaded; until then the section shows a prompt to download it.

Reading the PDF

The PDF renders directly in the browser. Scroll through pages as you would in any PDF viewer.

Adding a highlight

Select any text in the PDF with your pointer. A popup appears above the selection with:

  • An optional note field.
  • A color picker with four preset colors: Yellow, Green, Blue, and Pink. Yellow is the default.
  • Save and Cancel buttons.

Click Save to store the highlight. It is immediately overlaid on the PDF.

Editing a highlight

Click an existing highlight to open the inline editor below the PDF controls. The editor shows the selected quote (read-only), the note field, and the color picker. Change the note or color and click Save to update.

Deleting a highlight

Open the inline editor for the highlight and click Delete. A confirmation dialog asks you to confirm before the highlight is permanently removed.

Exporting highlights to Zotero

The Sync highlights to Zotero button pushes this paper's not-yet-synced highlights to Zotero as annotations (already-synced highlights are skipped). The button is only active when the paper has already been sent to Zotero (via Send to Zotero in the right pane). If the paper is not yet linked, hover the button to see the prompt to push it first.

Offline: The PDF reader loads the PDF over an authenticated request and requires an active connection. Highlight edits also require a connection.

Cross-references

Papers that this paper references or is referenced by, drawn from citation data. Each cross-reference links to that paper's detail page.

In-paper contradictions

A list of claims within this paper that the contradiction-detection pipeline has flagged as potentially inconsistent with each other or with other papers in your library. See also the Contradictions card in the right rail.

Notes

Your personal notes for this paper. Notes are displayed read-only in the centre pane; to edit them use the Quick Rating form in the right rail.

Offline: Notes are displayed from the local cache. Editing requires an active connection and is disabled offline.

Source Passages

A lazy-loading section that lists the text passages generated from the PDF. Passages expand on click to show the full text. Useful for verifying which parts of the paper were processed and for cross-checking RAG citations.

Ask — single-paper RAG

An inline chat interface scoped to this paper. Enter a question; the system retrieves relevant chunks from this paper only and generates a grounded answer with citations.

Offline: The Ask section requires a connection to the LLM backend. It is disabled offline.

Right pane — Actions

The right pane contains a set of action cards for managing and extending the paper.

Analyze Paper

A single Analyze Paper button that chains three pipeline steps in sequence:

  1. Download — fetch and store the source PDF.
  2. Process — extract and chunk the text.
  3. Summarise — generate TL;DR, detailed summary, methodology, and limitations.

A visual step tracker shows which steps are complete, running, or queued. You can also trigger each step individually using the buttons described below.

Individual pipeline actions

Button Action
Download Fetch and store the PDF
Process Extract the PDF text and split it into source passages
Summarise Generate the AI summary
Regenerate Summary Re-run the summarisation step without re-analysing the whole paper
Generate Cards Create spaced-repetition cards from this paper's source passages
Extract Entities Run the entity extraction pipeline for the Knowledge Graph
Zotero push Push this paper's metadata to your configured Zotero library

Offline: All pipeline action buttons are disabled offline.

Library actions

Controls for managing this paper within your library:

  • Star — toggle a star on the paper for quick filtering in the Library.
  • State transitions — move the paper through its reading workflow: Inbox → To Read → Reading → Done. Papers can be moved to Trash at any state (except trash itself); trashed papers can be restored or permanently deleted.
  • Hard-delete — permanently delete the paper and all associated data after confirmation (available from the Trash state).

The five lifecycle states are:

State Meaning
Inbox Newly discovered; not yet sorted
To Read Saved to your reading list
Reading Currently reading
Done Finished
Trash Removed; restorable or permanently deletable

Quick Rating

A form titled Quick Rating with three fields persisted per user:

  • Rating (1–5) — a slider for your personal rating of this paper.
  • Comment — a short free-text note about the paper.
  • Flagged — a checkbox to mark this paper for follow-up.

Zotero sync

Shows the sync status with Zotero (not synced / synced / error). Provides a Send to Zotero shortcut; also accessible via the individual pipeline action button above.

Contradictions

Lists contradictions detected between this paper and other papers in your library. Each item shows the conflicting claim and the other paper involved. A Scan contradictions button queues a new contradiction-detection scan for this paper.