learner

A Rust-powered academic research management system

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Features

• Paper Metadata Management

  • Support for arXiv, IACR, and DOI sources
  • Automatic source detection from URLs or identifiers
  • Full metadata extraction including authors and abstracts

• Local Database

  • SQLite-based storage with full-text search
  • Configurable document storage
  • Platform-specific defaults

• CLI Tool (learnerd)

  • Paper addition and retrieval
  • Search functionality
  • Document management
  • Daemon support for background operations

Installation

Library

[dependencies]
learner = { version = "*" }  # Uses latest version

CLI Tool

cargo install learnerd

which will install a binary you can reference with the command learner.

Usage

Library Usage

use learner::{Paper, Database};

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let db = Database::open(Database::default_path()).await?;
    
    // Add papers from various sources
    let paper = Paper::new("https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.07041").await?;
    paper.save(&db).await?;
    
    // Download associated document
    let storage = Database::default_storage_path();
    paper.download_pdf(&storage).await?;
    
    Ok(())
}

CLI Usage

# Initialize database
learner init

# Add papers
learner add 2301.07041
learner add "https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.07041"
learner add "10.1145/1327452.1327492"

# Manage documents
learner download arxiv 2301.07041
learner get arxiv 2301.07041
learner search "neural networks"

Daemon Management

learnerd can run as a background service for paper monitoring and updates.

System Service

# Install and start
sudo learnerd daemon install
sudo systemctl enable --now learnerd  # Linux
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/learnerd.daemon.plist  # macOS

# Remove
sudo learnerd daemon uninstall

Logs

• Linux: /var/log/learnerd/
• macOS: /Library/Logs/learnerd/

Files: learnerd.log (main, rotated daily), stdout.log, stderr.log

Troubleshooting

• Permission Errors: Check ownership of log directories
• Won't Start: Check system logs and remove stale PID file if present
• Installation: Run commands as root/sudo

Project Structure

1. learner - Core library

   • Paper metadata extraction and management
   • Database operations and search
   • PDF handling and source-specific clients
   • Error handling and type safety

2. learnerd - CLI application

   • Paper and document management interface
   • System daemon capabilities
   • Logging and diagnostics

Roadmap

Core Features

• PDF management
• Content extraction
• Paper removal
• Batch operations
• Export functionality
• Enhanced search
• Custom metadata

Advanced Features

• LLM integration
• Version control and annotations
• Paper discovery
• Citation analysis

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please open an issue before making major changes.

CI Workflow

Our automated pipeline ensures:

• Code Quality

  • rustfmt and taplo for consistent formatting
  • clippy for Rust best practices
  • cargo-udeps for dependency management
  • cargo-semver-checks for API compatibility

• Testing

  • Full test suite across workspace and platforms

All checks must pass before merging pull requests.

Development

This project uses just as a command runner.

# Setup
cargo install just
just setup

# Common commands
just test       # run tests
just fmt        # format code
just ci         # run all checks
just build-all  # build all targets

[!TIP] Running just setup and just ci locally is a quick way to get up to speed and see that the repo is working on your system!

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• arXiv API for paper metadata
• IACR for cryptography papers
• CrossRef for DOI resolution
• SQLite for local database support