📚 robot-papers - Your Local-First AI Paper Reader

The simplest way to read, manage, and annotate robotics research papers right on your computer. Works offline. Perfect for VLA, imitation learning, and world models enthusiasts.

⬇️ Download robot-papers Now
📄 Local-first 🤖 Embodied AI 📝 Obsidian Integration ⚡ Codex Scheduled Tasks

🔍 What Is robot-papers?

robot-papers is a dedicated research tool built for students, engineers, and robotics enthusiasts who want a clutter-free, local-first environment to read and organize academic papers. No cloud, no fuss — everything stays on your machine.

Specifically crafted for the embodied AI community, robot-papers supports the hottest research topics: Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models, imitation learning, world modeling, and more. Whether you're tracking 20 papers or 2,000, robot-papers keeps your research library clean, searchable, and always accessible.

✨ Why you'll love it

⚡ Key Features

📖 Smart Paper Reader

Multi-format support (PDF, HTML so far). Adjustable contrast, font size, and background for eye-friendly reading sessions.

🏷️ Intuitive Organization

Auto-tagging by topic, manual folders, advanced search. Find any paper keyword in 2 seconds.

📝 Obsidian Integration

Export highlights, notes, and metadata directly into a Markdown file inside your Obsidian vault. Build your second brain effortlessly.

⏰ Codex Scheduled Tasks

Set up recurring jobs: nightly backup to external disk, weekly CSV export, auto-cleanup of duplicates. All automatic with Codex.

🚀 Getting Started (Download)

Ready to take control of your paper collection? Follow these 3 easy steps:

  1. Visit the link below — it leads directly to the official download page.
  2. Click the "Download" button — the file will save to your computer.
  3. Double-click the downloaded file — just follow the on-screen prompts (if any) to launch the app. That's it!
⬇️ Visit the Download Page

Note: The download page opens in a new tab. Look for the latest release for Windows (anchor: release). It's a simple click.

🧠 How to Use robot-papers (No Experience Needed)

Step 1: Add your first paper

Click "Add Papers" at the top-right corner of the app window. Choose PDF files (or folders full of PDFs.) Your papers appear instantly in the library grid.

Step 2: Read and annotate

Double-click any paper to open the reader. Use the toolbar to highlight important sentences. You can also add margin notes by clicking the left-edge of any line.

Step 3: Sync to Obsidian

From the paper's detail view, click "Export to Obsidian". Choose your vault folder, pick a filename, and hit save. A Markdown note is created with full citation, your highlights, and notes — ready for interlinking.

Step 4: Set up automations (optional>

Go to Settings → Scheduled Tasks. Toggle automatic backup every evening at 7 PM or generate a weekly summary report automatically. The Codex engine handles everything in the background.

💻 Why “Local-First” Matters

Your papers are personal. With robot-papers, all data — highlights, marks, settings — stays stored on your local drive. No cloud servers, no tracking, no internet needed. Fast, private, and yours forever.

Perfect for researchers working in remote labs, offline libraries, or who simply love a stutter-free interface even with 500+ papers loaded.

🔒 Privacy by design

Because nothing leaves your machine, you can safely store unpublished research, sensitive datasets, or confidential drafts without worry.

🛠️ Troubleshooting & Quick Fixes

🚫 Windows SmartScreen warning?

That’s just Microsoft protecting you from unrecognized apps. Click "More info""Run anyway". Should start straight after.

🐌 App appears slowly on first launch?

Totally expected. It's indexing your papers to make search instant. After a minute or two, it'll run smooth.

🧹 Where did my Obsidian notes go?

Default export location is the "robot-papers" subfolder inside your chosen vault. You can change path in Settings → Obsidian export path.

📬 Get Support

Found a bug? Want a new feature? Just head to the GitHub page and open an issue. We read everything.