# Rivul AI

> Rivul AI (rivul.ai) is a free Multimodal AI Research Workspace that works from any source: search metadata for 300M+ academic papers, turn PDFs, scans and recordings into text, ask your own library with RAG, run research agents with skills, listen to any text, and use it all from Claude, Codex or Cursor through Rivul MCP. It is for anyone who works from sources: students, engineers, academics, and researchers. Every feature is free for every account; AI features run on your own AI provider key (BYOK): Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Mistral, or Meta.

## Primary pages

- [Home](https://rivul.ai/)
- [Features](https://rivul.ai/features): every feature in the order of the app sidebar
- [About Rivul AI](https://rivul.ai/about)
- [Rivul MCP: MCP server and REST API](https://rivul.ai/features/atlas)
- [Deep Research with agents and cited sources](https://rivul.ai/deep-research)
- [Documentation](https://rivul.ai/help)
- [Quickstart](https://rivul.ai/help/getting-started)
- [Bring your own key](https://rivul.ai/help/bring-your-own-key)
- [Rivul Atlas REST API reference](https://rivul.ai/help/atlas-rest-api)
- [Limits and quotas](https://rivul.ai/help/limits)
- [Troubleshooting](https://rivul.ai/help/troubleshooting)
- [Blog](https://rivul.ai/blog)

## Features

### Write
- [Papers](https://rivul.ai/features#papers): an editor where a draft keeps its sources, with grounded autocomplete, tracked suggestions, claim checking, version history, and Word, LaTeX, Markdown and BibTeX export. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/writing
- [Research](https://rivul.ai/features#research): ask a question and get a cited brief and findings table from the Rivul Index and your Library. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/research
- [Ask Rivul (RAG)](https://rivul.ai/features#ask-rivul): retrieval-augmented answers from your own documents, citing each passage by page. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/ask-rivul

### Agents
- [Rivul MCP](https://rivul.ai/features#rivul-mcp): a remote MCP server and REST API (OpenAPI schema, OAuth for AI clients) for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and your own apps. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/what-is-mcp-ai-research
- [Agents](https://rivul.ai/features#agents-runs): AI agents that search papers and your library, read the most relevant ones, and write a cited report. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/agents
- [Runs](https://rivul.ai/features#agents-runs): every agent run with its steps, sources and report, downloadable as Markdown. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/agents
- [Skills](https://rivul.ai/features#skills): reusable SKILL.md instructions for agents, from Rivul, the skills.sh community, or your own. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/skills

### Sources
- [Library](https://rivul.ai/features#library): a private PDF library with a reader, highlights and notes, and Ask this paper. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/library
- [Search papers](https://rivul.ai/features#search-papers): search metadata for 300M+ academic papers (titles, authors, abstracts, citations, open-access links), not full text, with saved searches and DOI lookup; no AI key needed. Paper metadata comes from the open OpenAlex dataset (https://openalex.org), released under CC0. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/find
- [Connectors](https://rivul.ai/features#connectors): Google Drive and Google Docs, Zotero import and push, AI clients, and your AI provider. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/connectors

### Convert
- [Document OCR](https://rivul.ai/features#document-ocr): text or Markdown from PDFs, scans and images. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/document-ocr
- [Transcribe](https://rivul.ai/features#transcribe): meetings, interviews, lectures and voice notes to timestamped text. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/transcribe
- [Listen](https://rivul.ai/features#listen): any paper, draft or long document read aloud. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/listen

### Tools
- [Citation tools](https://rivul.ai/features#citation-tools): format a DOI or saved paper in five styles, build BibTeX, convert BibTeX or RIS, and fill an evidence table. Docs: https://rivul.ai/help/citation-tools

### Account
- [Settings, sign-in and your AI key](https://rivul.ai/help/account): bring your own key for 6 AI providers, account-data export, activity log, and account deletion.

## Blog

- [What Is Rivul AI](https://rivul.ai/blog/what-is-rivul)
- [How Rivul AI Reads Scanned Research Papers](https://rivul.ai/blog/how-rivul-reads-scanned-research-papers)
- [Verify OCR Text Before Citing a Scanned Research Paper](https://rivul.ai/blog/verify-ocr-text-scanned-research-papers)
- [How to Connect Claude Code to Rivul MCP](https://rivul.ai/blog/connect-claude-code-rivul-atlas-mcp)
- [How to Connect OpenAI Codex to Rivul MCP](https://rivul.ai/blog/connect-openai-codex-rivul-atlas-mcp)
- [How Rivul MCP Connects Scholarly Search to AI Clients](https://rivul.ai/blog/rivul-atlas-scholarly-search-for-ai-clients)

## Workflows

- [Open Research](https://rivul.ai/open-research)
- [AI research assistant](https://rivul.ai/ai-research-assistant)
- [AI literature review](https://rivul.ai/ai-literature-review)
- [Chat with research papers](https://rivul.ai/chat-with-research-papers)
- [Zotero to Rivul AI](https://rivul.ai/zotero)
- [Rivul MCP setup for Claude Code](https://rivul.ai/help/atlas-claude-code)
- [Rivul MCP tool reference](https://rivul.ai/help/atlas-tools)
- [Rivul MCP usage and fair-use limits](https://rivul.ai/help/atlas-usage)

## Comparisons

- [Compare AI research tools](https://rivul.ai/compare)
- [Elicit alternative](https://rivul.ai/compare/elicit-alternative)
- [SciSpace alternative](https://rivul.ai/compare/scispace-alternative)
- [Consensus AI alternative](https://rivul.ai/compare/consensus-ai-alternative)

## Policies

- [Data sources](https://rivul.ai/sources)
- [AI-use disclosure](https://rivul.ai/ai-use)
- [Privacy policy](https://rivul.ai/privacy)
- [Terms of service](https://rivul.ai/terms)
- [Security](https://rivul.ai/security)
- [Contact](https://rivul.ai/contact)

Rivul AI does not claim that an AI model can validate a source. Answers cite the passage, page or timestamp they used, and the reader remains responsible for checking that source.