Oleafly

Oleafly beta

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A live collaborative LaTeX, Typst & Markdown editor for research.

Oleafly is a powerful editor for research writing in LaTeX, Typst and Markdown. The source, PDF, citations, figures, checks and Git history of a project all sit in one place. Write with your coauthors in real time, keep your projects in sync across computers, and bring Claude Code, Codex or any model you like into the project.

Download free · Read the guides · Run a server · Build from source

Free forever · Open source · No Oleafly account · No tracking

Why Oleafly

Everything here is free, including what other editors keep for paid plans: real-time collaboration with as many coauthors as you invite, full version history, Git and GitHub sync, Zotero, grammar checking and AI.

• Write with your coauthors in real time, with shared cursors and comments, on a server your lab sets up with one command.
• An editor made for long documents: completion for labels, citations and commands, live error checking, an outline of the whole project, Vim and Emacs keys, a visual mode and a searchable palette of 236 LaTeX symbols.
• Compile on your own computer. Tectonic, Typst and Pandoc are built in, and TeX Live, MacTeX, MiKTeX or TinyTeX take over when a project needs a full distribution.
• Click in the PDF to jump to the source and back, and the last good PDF stays on screen while you fix an error.
• Every project is a Git repository you can push to GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, Forgejo, Codeberg or your own Git server, and checkpoints save a snapshot after each successful compile.
• Cite from your Zotero library as you type, and search arXiv, Semantic Scholar, Crossref, PubMed and OpenAlex without leaving the editor.
• Spelling and grammar checks tuned for academic writing run on your computer.
• Preflight catches broken references, missing figures, fonts that didn't embed, accessibility gaps and anything that would unblind a review, before you submit.
• Draw figures that stay as TikZ, Typst or Mermaid code, and start from more than 1,700 templates for papers, theses, slides, posters and CVs.
• Import from Word, a PDF, an arXiv source, a Git repository or an online LaTeX account.
• The oleafly command builds, checks and syncs your projects from any terminal or CI job, with the same compilers and settings as the app.
• Cloud sync keeps your projects on every computer you use, and you can keep writing offline.
• Claude Code, Codex and 12 more agents work inside your project, or connect any model, local ones included. AI is optional, and each change it makes is a diff you can review and undo.
• Research tasks run a literature review, an evidence audit or a revision pass in a separate copy of the project while you keep writing, and you pick which changed files to keep. They are experimental and off by default; Settings > Experimentation turns them on.

Write together, live

Share a project to your lab's Oleafly Server and everyone edits the same files at once. You see each person's cursor and selection, who's online, and what changed while you were away. Click someone's avatar to jump to the line they're working on.

• Comment on any selection in LaTeX, Typst or Markdown, then reply, mention someone, resolve or reopen. A mentioned coauthor gets one email, and can turn those off.
• Edits you make offline merge when you reconnect. If they overlap with someone else's, Oleafly shows you both and asks before it applies anything.
• AI edits, Zotero citations, renames, deletes and figures all travel too. If two people replace the same figure at once, both versions are kept.
• The main file, compiler, spelling language and Typst options are shared, so the whole team compiles the project the same way.
• Each project has an owner, editors and viewers. Guests invited by email see only the projects they were invited to.

Run the server yourself

Oleafly Server installs with one command on a Linux machine, whether that's a lab workstation, a university VM or a small cloud server:

curl -fsSL https://oleafly.com/server/install.sh | sudo sh

It's a single Rust binary that uses SQLite, keeps files on disk or in any S3-compatible store, and sends email over SMTP if you set it up. People sign in with GitHub or any OpenID Connect provider, so your university's single sign-on works. There are ready-made configs for Docker Compose, Coolify, Render and systemd, and guides for Railway, Cloudflare Tunnel and university certificates.

Admins get a console in Oleafly for people, access rules, projects, email and the security log. Every device signs its changes, and the server builds each snapshot from that signed history instead of trusting uploads.

Read the server guide for setup, backups and the full list of who can do what.

Cloud sync across your computers

Turn on cloud sync and your library projects and app settings follow you from one computer to the next. Every download is checked against its record before it replaces a file, and a file you have open with unsaved changes is never overwritten.

• When two computers edit the same file, both versions are kept, each named after the computer that wrote it.
• Deleting most of a project at once puts it on hold until you confirm, so one bad move can't empty it everywhere.
• Files deleted on another computer go to the Trash here instead of vanishing.
• On a new computer, Oleafly asks once whether to keep this computer's settings or the synced ones.

Bring your projects with you

Moving from an online LaTeX editor? Sign in to your account once from Oleafly, pick the projects you want, and they come over with their files, compiler and main file, ready to compile. It works with a university's own server too.

With a Git token from that account, Oleafly can keep an imported project in sync both ways, so coauthors who stay online keep working the way they do now. Two-way sync uses the service's own Git integration, which needs a paid or university plan on the project owner's account.

You can also start from a project ZIP, a GitHub repository, a Word document, an arXiv source bundle, or a PDF that Oleafly rebuilds as editable LaTeX. Or open a folder where it already is.

AI agents that work inside your project

Pick an agent from the catalog and it works in your project with the source, the PDF and the compile log in reach. Each agent signs in with its own account and uses its own model. Oleafly gives it the project and the tools around it.

Claude Code

Codex CLI

Gemini CLI

Pi

OpenCode

OpenClaw

Cline

Hermes Agent

CodeBuddy

Kimi Code

Grok Build

Cursor

DeepSeek Harness

Qoder

These marks identify compatible tools and remain the property of their respective owners. They do not imply endorsement.

Prefer a chat assistant? Connect a hosted provider, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, or a local Ollama model.

• Every file change is a diff. Approve each one, let the assistant work on its own, or set rules per tool, and undo a single file or a whole turn.
• Plan mode maps the project before anything gets written.
• A literature review or a revision pass can run in its own Git worktree while you keep writing. You choose which changed files to keep.
• 39 research skills ship with the app, including literature sweeps, related work, claim checks and response letters.
• A local MCP server lets an outside AI client use the same project tools. It listens on 127.0.0.1 only.
• oleafly mcp gives Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and Gemini CLI the project tools over stdio, with the app open or closed.

AI is optional. The editor, compiler, PDF, citations, proofreading and checks all work with it off.

LaTeX, Typst and Markdown, compiled on your computer

Tectonic, Typst and Pandoc ship with the app, so a new project compiles without installing anything. When a project needs a full TeX distribution, switch it to latexmk with TeX Live, MacTeX, MiKTeX, or a TinyTeX that Oleafly installs for you.

• Click in the PDF to jump to the source, and back again. LaTeX uses SyncTeX, and Typst 0.13 or newer uses Tinymist.
• Compile errors link to the line that caused them, and the last good PDF stays on screen while you fix them.
• Visual mode lets you edit on a page-like view, with the source one click away.
• Completion and live diagnostics for labels, citations, commands, environments and file paths across the whole project.
• Spelling and grammar checks run locally and are tuned for academic writing.
• XeLaTeX, LuaLaTeX, and upLaTeX or pLaTeX for Japanese documents.

Citations, figures, checks and templates

Cite from Zotero as you type

Type @ and part of an author, title or year to cite from your Zotero library. Oleafly adds only that entry to the project's .bib. Citation Search covers arXiv, Semantic Scholar, Crossref, PubMed and OpenAlex.

Draw figures that stay as code

Diagram Composer draws on a canvas and writes TikZ, fletcher for Typst, or Mermaid. Change the drawing or the code and the other one follows.

Check before you submit

Preflight finds broken references, missing figures, fonts that didn't embed, accessibility gaps, and anything that would reveal the authors in a blind review. It has profiles for arXiv, IEEE, ACM, journals and theses.

Start from 1,700+ templates

Articles, theses, Beamer talks, posters, CVs and venue-style papers, each with a rendered preview before you create the project.

Git, history and a terminal

Every project is an ordinary folder with an ordinary Git repository. Stage, diff, commit, push, pull and publish to GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, Forgejo, Codeberg or your own server from the Source Control panel, or use your own terminal, since nothing is hidden from it. Checkpoints save a local snapshot after each successful compile, so you can roll back without making a commit.

A terminal dock sits under the editor with up to ten tabs per project. Cmd-click (Ctrl-click) a file path in its output to open it at that line.

The oleafly command works on the same projects from any terminal: build, watch, check before you submit, sync with an online LaTeX service, or run the Oleafly agent without opening the app. Every command can print JSON with stable exit codes for scripts and CI. See the command-line guide.

And a lot more

40+ conversion, citation and math tools

The Tools gallery is in beta and off by default. Turn it on in Settings > Experimentation > LaTeX tools.

Import and format conversion

Math, tables, writing, and validation

Literature, references, and research

The 39 research skills that ship with Oleafly

Skills are ordinary SKILL.md folders that follow the Agent Skills shape. Run one with a slash command, add your own, or share them with compatible CLI agents on the same computer.

The bundled research-core pack ships 39 skills. The names below are the IDs used by the catalog and in project settings.

Editor details

• A searchable palette of 236 LaTeX symbols, which inserts Typst names in Typst files.
• Vim and Emacs keybindings, multi-file tabs, folding, search and replace across the project, and word count.
• Rename or move a file and Oleafly updates the paths that point to it.
• Themes for light and dark mode, any installed font, editable syntax colors, and Zen mode.
• The interface is available in 21 languages.
• Command palette on Cmd+K (Ctrl+K), and one search box for projects, documents, settings and tools on Cmd+Shift+F (Ctrl+Shift+F).

Get started

1. Download Oleafly for your computer.
2. Create a project from a template, import one, or open a folder you already have.
3. Press Cmd+Enter (Ctrl+Enter on Windows and Linux) to compile.
4. To write with others, click Share and send the project to your lab's Oleafly Server.

On x86_64, the Linux packages need glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04 or later). ARM64 packages are built on Ubuntu 24.04. Releases include signed update artifacts, and the in-app updater checks the signature before it installs anything.

Questions people ask

Do I need an account?

Not an Oleafly account. You can write, compile and use Git without signing in to anything. Live collaboration signs you in to your lab's server with GitHub or your university's sign-in, and cloud sync signs in to your cloud storage.

Does it work offline?

Yes. Writing, compiling, the PDF, proofreading, preflight, Git and checkpoints all run on your computer. LaTeX builds offline once the bundled engine has the packages it needs, and Typst once its packages are cached. Shared projects keep your edits and merge them when you reconnect.

What goes over the network?

Only what you ask for: sharing with your server, cloud sync, literature and DOI lookups, GitHub, hosted AI providers, MCP servers you connect, and optional engine, package and template downloads. Release builds also check for an update when the app starts. A local Ollama model keeps AI traffic on your computer.

Can my university or company host the server?

Yes, that's the idea. Oleafly Server runs on your own machine or cloud account, signs people in through GitHub or any OpenID Connect provider, and stores files on disk or in S3-compatible storage. The server guide covers installs, backups and roles.

Learn more

• Product guides
• Oleafly Server
• Feature map
• Editor guide
• PDF preview
• Citations and literature
• Tools gallery
• Preflight and accessibility checks
• Templates
• Diagram Composer
• Git and source control
• Checkpoints
• AI Copilot
• Skills
• MCP integration
• Command-line tool
• Development setup
• Changelog

Community and support

Join the Oleafly community on Discord to ask questions, get help with a stubborn build, show what you're writing, and vote on what gets built next. It's free and open to everyone. Prefer GitHub? Report a bug or request a feature in GitHub Issues.

Oleafly is built by Prajwal Murthy and contributors. Contributions to code, templates, documentation, and feedback are welcome. Read the contributing guide to take part.

⭐ Help us reach more researchers and developers and grow the Oleafly community. Star this repo!

Cite Oleafly

Copy the BibTeX entry

@software{oleafly,
  author  = {Venkateshmurthy, Prajwal S. and {The Oleafly contributors}},
  title   = {Oleafly: a local-first workspace for research writing},
  year    = {2026},
  version = {0.4.8},
  url     = {https://github.com/Oleafly/Oleafly},
  license = {AGPL-3.0-or-later}
}

Security · Code of Conduct · AGPL-3.0-or-later

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