Your research loop, agentified.
Run literature review, paper reading, code inspection, experiments, and scientific writing side by side. Every claim keeps its source trail.
Also for macOS and Linux · Free and open source · Install guide
Bring your own
model.
Use the provider you already pay for, or run a local model. Keys stay in the main process.
The claim is on
page 7.
The bug is on
line 142.
A paper is not evidence until you can check it. Keep the original page, the repository, and the note in one workspace.
Chat that reads
the workspace.
Project-scoped sessions carry papers, files, and tool activity. The agent reads the project before it answers.
Read the page,
not a summary.
Open the original PDF, search inside it, and keep notes and highlights anchored to the page.
Start a paper
from a template.
LaTeX templates, an existing folder, PDF preview, and approvals. The paper starts inside the project that holds its sources.
Evidence before
fluency.
Archimedes is not research theater. It is a local-first instrument for the part of research that is mostly checking.
Research is not a single turn.
A chat shell answers. A reference manager stores. Archimedes keeps the question, the source, the implementation, and the draft inside one inspectable loop.
Scroll horizontally to compare
| Capability | Archimedes | Chat shells | Reference managers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page-grounded answers with source trails | ✓ | Sometimes | — |
| Paper and repository in one workspace | ✓ | — | — |
| Local-first projects, workspaces, and sessions | ✓ | — | Library only |
| Human approval before writes and commands | ✓ | — | — |
| LaTeX writing, terminal, and artifacts together | ✓ | — | — |
| Bring your own model and search provider | ✓ | Varies | — |
| Open source and self-hosted data | ✓ | — | Varies |
Before you
install.
Short answers. The full documentation is being written in public; the structure is already there.
What is Archimedes?
A local-first research-agent suite for discovering evidence, reading papers, inspecting code, running experiments, and writing with traceability. It is a desktop app, not a hosted chat product.
Is it free?
Yes. Archimedes is open source. You bring your own model and search credentials, so there is no bundled subscription.
Where does my data live?
Projects, sessions, libraries, approvals, and command history live in a local SQLite database at .archimedes/archimedes.db. Credentials stay in the Electron main process.
Which models can I use?
Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, plus Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, Moonshot, OpenRouter, Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM, and other hosted or local providers.
Does it need Git?
No. Git adds worktree isolation, but a project folder is enough. Without .git, Archimedes uses sandbox workspaces and hides worktree actions.
How do I install it?
Clone the repository, run npm install, copy .env.example to .env.local, then run npm run dev. A coding agent can do the first launch for you.
Is this a ChatGPT alternative?
No. It is a research workbench: discovery, reading, evidence, paper-plus-code, experiments, and scientific writing in one local-first app.
Can I use it for a lab or a team?
Projects, workspaces, and sessions are local. Collaboration APIs and cloud sync exist, but the core loop does not require an account or a remote server.
Get Archimedes.
Free and open source. Local-first by default. Bring the models you already use.
Also for macOS and Linux · Read the install guide