ResearchTwin: Federated Agentic Web of Research Knowledge

ResearchTwin is an open-source, federated platform that transforms a researcher's publications, datasets, and code repositories into a conversational Digital Twin. Built on a Bimodal Glial-Neural Optimization (BGNO) architecture, it enables dual-discovery where both humans and AI agents collaborate to accelerate scientific discovery.

Live at researchtwin.net | Join the Network

Project Vision

The exponential growth of scientific outputs has created a "discovery bottleneck." Traditional static PDFs and siloed repositories limit knowledge synthesis and reuse. ResearchTwin addresses this by:

Integrating multi-modal research artifacts from Semantic Scholar, Google Scholar, GitHub, and Figshare
Computing a real-time S-Index metric (Quality × Impact × Collaboration) across all output types
Providing a conversational chatbot interface for interactive research exploration
Exposing an Inter-Agentic Discovery API with Schema.org types for machine-to-machine research discovery
Enabling a federated, Discord-like architecture supporting local nodes, hubs, and hosted edges

Architecture Overview

BGNO (Bimodal Glial-Neural Optimization)

Data Sources          Glial Layer          Neural Layer         Interface
┌──────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌──────────────┐    ┌────────────┐
│Semantic Scholar│───▶│             │    │              │    │  Web Chat  │
│Google Scholar │───▶│  SQLite     │───▶│  RAG with    │───▶│  Discord   │
│GitHub API     │───▶│  Cache +    │    │  Claude API  │    │  Agent API │
│Figshare API   │───▶│  Rate Limit │    │              │    │  Embed     │
└──────────────┘    └─────────────┘    └──────────────┘    └────────────┘

Connector Layer: Pulls papers (S2+GS with deduplication), repos (GitHub), datasets (Figshare), and ORCID metadata
Glial Layer: SQLite caching with 24h TTL, rate limiting, S2+GS title-similarity merge (0.85 threshold)
Neural Layer: RAG with Claude — context assembly, prompt engineering, conversational synthesis
Interface Layer: D3.js knowledge graph, chat widget, Discord bot, REST API

Federated Network Tiers

Tier	Name	Description	Status
Tier 1	Local Nodes	Researchers run `python run_node.py` locally	Live
Tier 2	Hubs	Lab aggregators federating multiple nodes	Planned
Tier 3	Hosted Edges	Cloud-hosted at researchtwin.net	Live

Inter-Agentic Discovery API

Machine-readable endpoints with Schema.org @type annotations:

Endpoint	Schema.org Type	Purpose
`GET /api/researcher/{slug}/profile`	`Person`	Researcher profile with HATEOAS links
`GET /api/researcher/{slug}/papers`	`ItemList` of `ScholarlyArticle`	Papers with citations
`GET /api/researcher/{slug}/datasets`	`ItemList` of `Dataset`	Datasets with QIC scores
`GET /api/researcher/{slug}/repos`	`ItemList` of `SoftwareSourceCode`	Repos with QIC scores
`GET /api/discover?q=keyword&type=paper`	`SearchResultSet`	Cross-researcher search

Getting Started

Hosted (Tier 3) — Zero Setup

Visit researchtwin.net/join.html
Register with your name, email, and research identifiers
Your Digital Twin is live immediately

Local Node (Tier 1) — Full Control

git clone https://github.com/martinfrasch/researchtwin.git
cd researchtwin
pip install -r backend/requirements.txt
cp node_config.json.example node_config.json
# Edit node_config.json with your details
python run_node.py --config node_config.json

Docker Deployment

cp .env.example .env  # Add your API keys
docker-compose up -d --build

Required API keys: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (for Claude RAG) Optional: S2_API_KEY, GITHUB_TOKEN, DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN, SMTP credentials

Repository Structure

researchtwin/
├── backend/
│   ├── main.py              # FastAPI endpoints (REST + Discovery API)
│   ├── researchers.py        # SQLite researcher CRUD + token management
│   ├── database.py           # SQLite schema, WAL mode, migrations
│   ├── models.py             # Pydantic models for all endpoints
│   ├── rag.py                # RAG context assembly for Claude
│   ├── qic_index.py          # S-Index / QIC computation engine
│   ├── email_service.py      # SMTP service for profile update codes
│   ├── connectors/           # Data source connectors
│   │   ├── semantic_scholar.py
│   │   ├── scholarly_lib.py  # Google Scholar via scholarly
│   │   ├── github_connector.py
│   │   └── figshare.py
│   └── discord_bot/          # Discord bot with /research and /sindex
├── frontend/
│   ├── index.html            # Main dashboard with D3.js knowledge graph
│   ├── join.html             # Self-registration page
│   ├── update.html           # Email-verified profile updates
│   ├── privacy.html          # Privacy policy
│   └── widget-loader.js      # Embeddable chat widget
├── run_node.py               # Tier 1 local node launcher
├── node_config.json.example  # Local node configuration template
├── docker-compose.yml        # Docker orchestration
├── nginx/                    # Nginx reverse proxy + SSL
└── whitepaper.tex            # LaTeX manuscript

Ecosystem

This repository is part of the ResearchTwin Ecosystem project:

Repository	Description
researchtwin	Federated platform (this repo)
s-index	S-Index formal specification and reference implementation

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See the project board for tracked issues.

New connectors (ORCID enrichment, PubMed, OpenAlex)
Affiliation-based geographic mapping
MCP server for inter-agentic discovery
UI/UX improvements
Bug fixes and optimizations

License

MIT License. See LICENSE.

Contact

Platform: researchtwin.net
Email: martin@researchtwin.net
Issues: GitHub Issues

Empowering researchers and AI agents to discover, collaborate, and innovate together.

ResearchTwin

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