PaperPeek

Turn dense scientific papers into clear, jargon-free summaries with follow-up chat.

Features

• TL;DR — 2-3 sentence summary
• Explain Like I'm Five — detailed, accessible explanation
• Paper Sections — every section summarized individually
• Chat — ask follow-up questions with full paper context
• PDF Upload — drag & drop or browse
• URL Import — paste arXiv, PubMed, or any open-access URL
• Dark Mode

Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• An OpenAI API key

Install

git clone <your-repo>
cd paper-reader
npm install

Environment Variables

Create a .env file or set these environment variables:

# Required
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-api-key-here

# Optional — defaults to gpt-4o
OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-4o

Development

npm run dev

Opens on http://localhost:5000.

Production

npm run build
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-... node dist/index.cjs

Or with a .env file:

npm run build
node -r dotenv/config dist/index.cjs

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, wouter
• Backend: Express, SQLite (better-sqlite3), Drizzle ORM
• AI: OpenAI API (gpt-4o by default, configurable via OPENAI_MODEL)
• PDF Parsing: pdf-parse v2

Docker (optional)

FROM node:20-slim
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --omit=dev
COPY dist/ ./dist/
EXPOSE 5000
ENV NODE_ENV=production
CMD ["node", "dist/index.cjs"]

docker build -t paperpeek .
docker run -p 5000:5000 -e OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-... paperpeek