Artifact is an open source (MIT licensed) workspace for researchers to discover and dive deep on papers with the help of a powerful, personalized AI assistant, supporting papers on ArXiv, uploaded documents, and arbitrary website links (e.g. technical blog).

We offer a free-to-use hosted version at withartifact.com and include instructions for self-hosting below.

Have a domain in mind and want to get a lay of the land? Tell Artifact what you'd like to go deep on and it performs web search, reads the papers it finds, and synthesizes a list of papers (in order of importance) for you to explore.

The assistant has the full text in context, so you can ask questions, request derivations, pull side-by-side definitions, or highlight a passage to dive deeper. Margin notes and AI threads live in a notes rail next to the page.

Generate a link that your colleagues can use to import your paper review, including your chats, notes, and deep dives.

We are grateful for the support of the following organizations that make it possible for us to offer a hosted version of Artifact with generous inference usage for free for our users.

Vercel OSS program	Claude OSS program	Fireworks AI Inference credits

Open source contributions are welcome. Open an issue before making changes so the approach can be discussed.

Spins up Postgres + Storage + Studio in Docker via the Supabase CLI. No hosted project required. Requires Docker running.

npx supabase start       # boots the stack; prints credentials when ready

start prints a block like:

API URL: http://127.0.0.1:54321
DB URL: postgresql://postgres:postgres@127.0.0.1:54322/postgres
Studio URL: http://127.0.0.1:54323
service_role key: eyJhbGciOi...

(Optional: run npx supabase init first if you want to commit a supabase/config.toml to share custom ports/Postgres version, or to supabase link against a hosted project. Solo dev with defaults doesn't need it.)

You'll also need a Google OAuth client (one-time): Cloud Console → APIs & Services → Credentials → OAuth client ID, type "Web application". Add http://localhost:3000/api/auth/callback/google as an authorized redirect URI.

Copy .env.example to .env and map the printed credentials:

Open Studio (the printed URL, default http://127.0.0.1:54323) → Storage → create a private bucket named learning-material.

The multi-host routing variables (APEX_HOSTS, APP_HOST, AUTH_URL, AUTH_COOKIE_DOMAIN) are production-only; leave them unset locally.

Then:

npm install
npm run db:migrate    # applies prisma/migrations/* to the local Postgres
npm run dev

Open localhost:3000 and sign in with Google. Set OPENROUTER_API_KEY in .env so users can start chatting immediately, or have each user add their own OpenRouter key under Settings.

npm run lint                   # ESLint
npm run test                   # Vitest
npm run typecheck              # tsc --noEmit
npm run build                  # production build
npm run db:migrate             # apply new prisma migrations
npm run db:studio              # Prisma Studio (browse/edit DB rows)

npx supabase stop              # tear the stack down (data persists in Docker volumes)
npx supabase start             # bring it back up
npx supabase db reset          # nuke the DB and re-run all prisma migrations from scratch
npx supabase status            # print URLs and keys again

Artifact can be self-hosted on any platform that runs a Next.js app. You'll need a Postgres database, an object storage bucket, and a Google OAuth client.

• Supabase project (supabase.com) gives you Postgres + Storage in one project. Note the project URL, the service_role key (Settings → API), and create a private Storage bucket named learning-material.
• Google OAuth client (Cloud Console → APIs & Services → Credentials → OAuth client ID, type "Web application"): add your deployment's https://<your-domain>/api/auth/callback/google as an authorized redirect URI. Copy the client ID and secret.

Copy .env.example to .env and fill in the required values. Every variable is documented inline: what it does, where to get the value, and which are local vs. production-only.

For a deployed instance you'll need: DATABASE_URL, DIRECT_URL, AUTH_SECRET, AUTH_GOOGLE_ID, AUTH_GOOGLE_SECRET, SUPABASE_URL, SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY, SUPABASE_BUCKET, ENCRYPTION_KEY, plus the multi-host routing variables (APEX_HOSTS, APP_HOST, AUTH_URL, AUTH_COOKIE_DOMAIN). Optionally set OPENROUTER_API_KEY to give keyless users a working model out of the box (see the platform-key note above).

npm install
npm run build:deploy   # runs prisma migrate deploy + next build
npm start

Sign in with Google, then add your OpenRouter key under Settings (or rely on the platform OPENROUTER_API_KEY).