Paper Lantern

paperlantern

Research intelligence that makes your AI coding agent smarter - one command setup.

Paper Lantern gives your AI coding agent access to 2M+ CS research papers - the right technique for your problem, with tradeoffs, benchmarks, and implementation guidance.

Quick start

npx paperlantern@latest

That's it. Pick your agents, log in, and Paper Lantern is configured.

Supported agents

• Claude Code
• Cursor
• Windsurf
• GitHub Copilot (VS Code)
• Codex
• Gemini CLI
• Cline

Prefer to set up manually, or using a client not listed above? See paperlantern.ai/docs for per-agent config snippets and the raw MCP endpoint.

What it does

The setup CLI:

1. Authenticates via OAuth (opens browser)
2. Configures the MCP server for your selected agents
3. Installs agent rules so your agent knows when to use Paper Lantern

Tools available

Once configured, your agent gets these tools:

Tool	What it does
explore_approaches	Survey 4-6 approach families with evidence and tradeoffs
deep_dive	Investigate one technique in depth - implementation, hyperparameters, failure modes
compare_approaches	Side-by-side comparison of 2-3 candidates
check_feasibility	GO / PROTOTYPE / RECONSIDER verdict given your constraints
give_feedback	Tell us what helped and what didn't

When your agent uses Paper Lantern

Paper Lantern activates when your agent is making technical decisions where research evidence could improve the outcome - choosing between algorithms, architectures, or techniques.

It does not activate for syntax questions, library lookups, debugging, or general programming tasks.

Links

• Website
• Setup guide