Core concepts.

The products are separate apps, so a word does not always mean the same thing in each one. This page defines the terms these docs use and says which product each one belongs to.

01Accounts and access

Who you are, how you sign in, and what your account allows.

Account

An account is your email address and password, or a linked sign-in, in one product. Accounts work differently in each:

• ResearchAnything is open to anyone. You confirm your email with a six-digit code, and every new account starts on the Free plan.
• Sourcipedia needs no account to read or search. Its sign-in is only for its administrators.
• Essarion Science has no sign-up. Accounts are set up by Essarion, and only addresses on its allowlist can sign in.

How to get into each one is on Getting access.

Essarion ID

Essarion ID is an optional shared login, shown as Sign in with Essarion. It is a separate account system with its own email and password, and creating one needs a verified email. When you use it on a product, that product creates or links its own account for you and signs you in as usual. An existing account with the same email is never taken over silently: you prove that account's password once to link the two, and both ways in keep working afterwards.

Session

After you sign in, the product sets a session cookie that holds a signed token. It lasts seven days. Each product sets its own cookie on its own domain, so signing in to one product does not sign you in to another. Details are on Security.

Plan

A plan sets your monthly allowances in ResearchAnything: research runs, runs on the Max model, workspace chat messages, and a cap on saved sources. There are three plans: Free, Pro and Researcher. Allowances reset each calendar month. Sourcipedia is free to read, and Essarion Science does not meter accounts against a plan.

API key

An API key lets your own code call the ResearchAnything developer API. Keys start with ra-, are created in the API Console, and are shown in full only once. A key acts as your account, so its runs count against your plan. You can revoke a key at any time. See API keys.

02Research

The terms for asking a question and getting an answer back. Most of them belong to ResearchAnything.

Run

A run is one question worked through to an answer. In ResearchAnything, a run searches, reads and ranks sources, then writes a cited report. In Essarion Science, a run is a study. Every run has an id and a status, keeps a record of its steps, and belongs to the account that started it. Asking for someone else's run returns "not found".

Research model

In ResearchAnything you choose how a run works:

• RA-Lite: fast everyday research, on every plan.
• RA-1: stronger ranking and contradiction checks.
• RA-2: RA-1, with every cited sentence checked against its source and fixed or removed if it doesn't hold.
• Max: looks for what it missed, then searches again.
• Auto: picks the strategy the question calls for.

Everything except RA-Lite needs a paid plan. These are research strategies, not separate language models: they differ in how they search, read and check. Runs made through the developer API use RA-Lite.

Depth mode

A depth mode is Scan, Deep Dive or Exhaustive. It trades time for thoroughness: how many sources are gathered, how closely they are read, and how many passes the written answer gets. Scan writes a single draft. Deep Dive, the default, and Exhaustive add a critic that reviews the draft, and the deeper settings revise the answer when the critic finds a problem it could not fix. In ResearchAnything, depth applies to the paid models. Essarion Science uses the same three names to set how many steps and how much time a study may take.

Source mode

A source mode sets where ResearchAnything looks for evidence:

• Web: the open web, through Brave Search.
• Papers: scholarly indexes, namely arXiv, PubMed, Europe PMC, Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex and CrossRef.
• Auto: both at once, merged.

Source

A source is a page or paper a run found and read: its title, address and publisher, what was read from it, and the scores used to rank it. When a run finishes, the sources it relied on are saved with it. You can keep sources in your library, which has a size cap set by your plan, or add them to a project.

Citation

A citation ties a claim to the source behind it. Answers link each claim to its source, and references can be produced in MLA, APA, Chicago, IEEE, Harvard or BibTeX. ResearchAnything also has a separate Cite tool. Give it a link, DOI, ISBN, arXiv or PubMed ID, or a title, and it formats one reference in any of 19 styles, or as BibTeX, RIS or CSL-JSON. See Citations.

Project

A project is a workspace in ResearchAnything for longer pieces of work. It holds sources, documents you write, and chats with an assistant that can draw on the project's sources. A project belongs to one account. See Projects & documents.

Paper

A paper is a longer document you write in ResearchAnything, which you can start from a finished run. Earlier versions are kept. Papers are private unless you publish one to ResearchAnything's public gallery, and you can unpublish it later.

03Sourcipedia

The terms for the encyclopedia.

Entry

An entry is one topic in the encyclopedia: a plain-language summary with the sources it was written from. Entries are written and revised by the research pipeline that runs inside Sourcipedia, and each one has a permanent page.

Concept

Entries are filed under concepts. Concepts form a tree of broader and narrower topics, so you can move from a subject to the parts of it.

Knowledge store

Every entry keeps its sources, so the encyclopedia doubles as an index of sources that have already been vetted. The knowledge store is that index. ResearchAnything searches it before the web, and skips or narrows the web search when it already has enough. This works because ResearchAnything and Sourcipedia share a database.

04Essarion Science

The terms for running a study. The Science section covers each in depth.

Study

A study is a run in Essarion Science. Rather than follow a fixed script, a planner chooses the next step each turn: fetch records, run code in the notebook, test a result, or write up.

Tools and skills

A tool is one action the planner can take, such as querying a database, running notebook code or assessing a drug target. A skill is a packaged analysis the tools can use, such as primer design or interpreting a genetic variant.

Falsification ledger

The falsification ledger is a record, kept across studies, of claims that were tested and what happened to them. It stops Essarion Science from offering an idea that was already tried and rejected as if it were new.

Data library

The data library holds research datasets that ship with Essarion Science, such as the Negative Results Index and the Drug Development Atlas. You can browse them under the Data tab, and a study can query them while it runs.

05Where these terms appear

• Runs, models and modes: Research workflow and Run timelines.
• Sources and citations: Sources & library and Working with citations.
• Entries and search: Articles & sources and Search.
• Studies, tools and verification: The workbench and Verification.
• Keys and sign-in: Authentication, Getting access and Security.