Open Source · MIT License

Your AI Research Copilot

Literature search, data analysis, academic writing, and project management — all powered by AI, all in one desktop app. Built for scientists and academics.

Get Started
$ npm i -g research-copilot
Research Copilot main interface

Not another general AI assistant

Tools like Claude Cowork are great at general knowledge work — file management, document drafting, data extraction. Research Copilot goes deeper. It's built for the academic research lifecycle.

Claude Cowork

  • Web search — not academic-focused
  • Can process files you already have
  • Generic document drafting
  • No citation verification
  • No domain-specific skills
  • Closed source
RC

Research Copilot

  • Multi-source academic search (Semantic Scholar, arXiv, OpenAlex, DBLP)
  • Paper library with DOI, bibtex, citation counts, relevance scoring
  • Venue-specific academic writing (NeurIPS, ICML, IMRAD, LaTeX)
  • Citations verified via literature search — never hallucinated
  • 13 pluggable research skills — grant writing (NSF/NIH/DOE), data analysis, visualization
  • Open source (MIT) — fully customizable

Think of it this way: Claude Cowork is a smart office assistant. Research Copilot is a lab partner who knows how to search literature, run stats, write papers, and apply for grants.

Everything you need for research

One app that handles the entire research workflow — from literature discovery to paper writing.

Multi-Source Literature Search

Search Semantic Scholar, arXiv, OpenAlex, and DBLP simultaneously. Papers are scored, deduplicated, and organized automatically.

Python Data Analysis

AI generates and runs Python scripts with matplotlib and seaborn. Get publication-quality figures and statistical analysis through natural language.

Academic Writing

Write LaTeX manuscripts, grant proposals, and conference papers with AI that understands academic conventions and citation styles.

Coding Tools Built In

Read, write, and edit files. Run bash commands. Full coding agent capabilities powered by pi-mono — no terminal switching needed.

Document Conversion

Convert PDF, DOCX, PPTX, and XLSX to Markdown. Attach files directly in chat — images, CSVs, PDFs all handled natively.

Extensible Skills

13 builtin skills for writing, visualization, and analysis. Add your own project-specific skills as simple Markdown files.

13 builtin skills,
infinite possibilities

Skills are lazy-loaded knowledge modules that give the AI domain expertise. They're just Markdown files — easy to read, easy to customize, easy to share.

Paper Writing
Research Grants
Scientific Writing
Matplotlib
Seaborn
Scientific Schematics
Rewrite & Humanize
Scholar Evaluation
Brainstorming
Creative Thinking
Scientific Visualization
Coding
Skills panel showing builtin research skills

Powerful literature management

Search across multiple academic databases. Papers are automatically scored for relevance, deduplicated, and organized in a searchable table.

Literature search interface with multi-source results

Built on solid foundations

Modern stack, proven tools. Research Copilot stands on the shoulders of great open-source projects.

Electron
Desktop runtime
React
UI framework
pi-mono
Agent runtime
Zustand
State management
TailwindCSS
Styling
TypeScript
Type safety

Get started in minutes

Three steps to your AI-powered research workflow.

1

Install & launch

$ npm i -g research-copilot
$ research-copilot

Update to latest: npm update -g research-copilot

2

Enter API keys

On first launch, the app prompts you to enter your API keys directly in the UI. You need at least one of:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY # Claude models
OPENAI_API_KEY # GPT / o-series models
BRAVE_API_KEY # web search (recommended)
OPENROUTER_API_KEY # AI diagrams (optional)
3

Open a project folder

Pick any folder as your workspace. Research Copilot stores notes, papers, and data in a .research-pilot directory inside it.

Prefer to build from source?

$ git clone https://github.com/daidong/PiPilot.git && cd PiPilot && npm install && npm run dev