Run your first search online

Turn a question into a reading list on paperseek.app — no installation. About five minutes.

Prefer your own machine? Install the Community edition.

Before you start

• An email address to create an account. During the public beta every account receives 20 free credits a day; a search costs 1 credit. See Service & credits.
• No account? You can run one temporary search without signing in — see Search without signing in. Temporary searches are not saved.

1. Sign in

Open paperseek.app and click Not signed in at the bottom of the sidebar, then choose Sign in or create an account. Enter your email address, confirm the verification code, and set a password. Details and other sign-in methods: Your account.

2. Ask a question

After sign-in, PaperSeek Service is the active mode: models are provided by PaperSeek and tasks use your daily credits.

Open Search in the sidebar. Keep the default source OpenAlex, leave the budget on Auto, and type your question, for example:

How does open-source software obtain funding for long-term maintenance?

Select Start search, or press Ctrl+Enter / ⌘+Enter. The form shows the credits the task uses and how many remain today.

3. Follow the search

PaperSeek works in four visible stages: it interprets your question, iterates source-specific queries, retrieves and ranks candidates, then presents results. You can stop the run at any time from the header. What the stages and counts mean: Search the literature.

4. Read the results

Open Results when the run finishes. Each paper shows its abstract, a relevance score with a written reason, and a link to the original record. Export the list as CSV or JSON.

The run is saved to your account. Reopen it from Search history in the sidebar. From here you can also open a citation map, run a bibliometric analysis, or start an experimental review.

What next?

• Search the literature: budgets, field filters, stopping and reconnecting.
• Use your own keys: your own model and data-source keys, no credits.
• Service & credits: costs, refunds, and the daily refill.