Projects and documents
A project is where a line of research lives: its runs, the sources they found, your documents, and a chat that can read all of it.
01What a project is
A research run answers one question. A project holds the work around many of them: a literature review, a thesis chapter, a story you are reporting, a market you are sizing.
Every research run is saved into a project, so you choose one in the research box before you start. Projects are private to your account.
Your projects are listed in the sidebar and under Library → Projects, with how many sources and chats each has. Library → Runs lists every run. You can delete a project or a run from the Library.
02Creating a project
Create a project from the + next to Projects in the sidebar, from Library → New project, or from the project chip in the research box. A project needs a name; the description is optional.
03The workspace
Opening a project opens its workspace. The first time, it starts a new chat. After that, it comes back the way you left it.
The workspace is made of panels. Chats, runs, documents, single sources and the project tree all open as panels, and you arrange them:
- drag a panel by its grip onto the edge of another pane to split it, or onto the middle to add it as a tab,
- drag the dividers to resize,
- pick an arrangement from the layout menu: Split, Partial or Full.
The arrangement is remembered for each project in this browser.
The workspace bar
- + opens a new chat, the project tree, documents or the sources drawer.
- Chat history lists every conversation in the project, grouped by when it was last used. Open, rename or delete one from here.
- Reset closes every panel, after asking you to confirm.
- ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux) opens the command palette.
The project tree
The tree shows how the project's material fits together: each run with the sources it read underneath, then the sources saved outside any run, grouped by site. Click a run to open it as a panel, or a source to open its analysis.
Pop out
A chat or a document panel can be popped out into its own window that stays on top of other tabs and apps, so you can keep it beside something else. The window closes if the tab that opened it navigates away. Pop out needs a Chromium-based browser, such as Chrome or Edge.
04Project chat
The project chat works with everything in the project. It knows the project's sources, its runs (with a summary of each and the sources it read), and its documents. It also knows which runs and documents you have open beside it, so "this document" or "this run" means what is on screen.
A project can have many chats. The chat button opens a new one down the right of the workspace, beside whatever is open; + → New chat also starts one. Each message you send counts against your plan's monthly chat allowance: 30 on Free, 200 on Pro and 750 on Researcher.
What it can do
- Read and cite your sources. It reads a saved source in full and cites the paragraph it used. Click the citation to see the claim beside the passage.
- Search. Your saved sources, in this project or across all of them; the web, for quick facts; and the academic literature across six databases.
- Judge a source. A credibility read on a source: its type, the signals behind it, and how it is safe to use it.
- Work with papers. Identify a paper from a partial reference such as "Smith 2019 RNA stability", and list what a paper cites and what cites it.
- Write. Create, edit, rename and delete documents. An open document updates while the chat writes to it.
- Manage sources. Add a source from a link, or remove one from the project.
- Start a research run. The run streams into the chat and is saved to the project. It runs on RA-Lite and uses one of your monthly research runs.
Commands and references
| Type | What it does |
|---|---|
| /research | Start a research run on what follows. |
| /cite | Format citations for a source. |
| /doc | Create a new document. |
| /addsource | Save a link as a source. |
| @ | Refer to a saved source or a document by name. |
Pasting a bare link into the message box queues it to be saved as a source when you send. The microphone button dictates: tap it to keep it open, or press and hold to talk.
From a run
On a run page, type into "Ask about this run…" at the foot of the page, or choose Ask about this source on a source. The workspace opens with the run on the left and the chat on the right, carrying your question or the source.
05Sources in a project
When a run in the project finishes, the sources its answer stands on are saved to the project. You can add others by pasting a link into the Sources drawer or the chat. An added link is read and analysed before it is saved.
The project's Sources page lists everything saved to it. Search by title or site, sort by newest or A–Z, copy a link, or remove one or several. Removing a source takes it out of the project, not out of your library. See Your library.
06Documents
Documents are notes and drafts that live in the project: an outline, a memo, a literature review. The editor handles headings, lists, tables, links and text formatting. A project can hold as many as you need.
- Create one from the + menu → Documents, or ask the chat, for example with
/doc. - The chat can write into a document while you watch. When it cites a source in a document, the citation becomes a link to that source.
- The project's Documents page lets you search, sort and delete documents.
- Open in Cite sends a document's text to Cite to find sources for it.