Oleafly

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.

[Two coauthors editing the same LaTeX file in Oleafly, with their cursors, avatars and the People and Activity pane]

• 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, reviewers, commenters and viewers. Reviewers' edits become suggestions, and owners and editors can switch to Suggesting too. Guests invited by email see only the projects they were invited to.
• Each shared project has a chat, and a history where you can compare versions, restore one or give it a name.
• Co-authors can open a shared project in their browser when the server has browser access on, and read the PDF from the latest compile.

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.

[Oleafly Server admin console showing people, access rules and the security log]

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.

You can sync to Dropbox, to Google Drive, or to a bucket of your own on Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, MinIO or another S3-compatible service.

[Oleafly Cloud sync settings with the Dropbox card and a list of what syncs]

• 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.

[Oleafly Import a project dialog with options for local files, arXiv, GitHub and an online LaTeX 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.

[An AI agent in Oleafly revising a section of a LaTeX paper, with the proposed change shown as a diff]

_{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. npx skills add Oleafly/Oleafly installs them in Claude Code, Codex and other agents too.
• 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.
• Each release includes oleafly.mcpb. Open it and Claude Desktop installs Oleafly as an extension. The MCP Registry lists it as io.github.Oleafly/oleafly.

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.

[Oleafly source editor and compiled PDF side by side, with a compile diagnostic linked to its source line]

• 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.
• Quarto and Calepin documents run their R, Python or Julia code once you allow code for the project. Oleafly can download either tool for you.

Citations, figures, checks and templates

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.

[Oleafly Source Control panel with a diff, a branch graph and commit controls]

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

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

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

@software{oleafly,  author  = {Venkateshmurthy, Prajwal S. and {The Oleafly contributors}},  title   = {Oleafly: a local-first workspace for research writing},  year    = {2026},  version = {0.4.10},  url     = {https://github.com/Oleafly/Oleafly},  license = {AGPL-3.0-or-later}}

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

Star history