OpenLeaf

AI-powered citation search & paper review for Overleaf

Find relevant papers to cite and get feedback on your writing, without leaving the editor.

How it works

1. Open any project on overleaf.com
2. Click the green OpenLeaf button in the bottom-right corner
3. Citations tab — click "Find Citations" to discover papers paragraph by paragraph, scored 0-100 with LLM reasoning
4. Review tab — get AI feedback on your paper in Friendly (constructive) or Fire (Reviewer #2) mode
5. Click + Add to append BibTeX entries to your .bib file automatically

Click to open OpenLeaf

Citation search — find papers paragraph by paragraph

LLM-scored results with reasoning

Friendly review — constructive mentor

Fire review — the Reviewer #2 experience

Configure your LLM and API keys

Browser support

OpenLeaf is a Manifest V3 web extension. A single Chromium build serves Chrome, Opera, and Edge; Safari is built from the same source through Apple's converter.

Install

Chrome / Edge — Web Store

openleaf extension link

Chrome / Opera / Edge — load unpacked

1. Download the latest openleaf-chromium-vX.Y.Z.zip from Releases and unzip it (or build it yourself — see From source).
2. Open your browser's extensions page:
   • Chrome / Edge: chrome://extensions
   • Opera: opera://extensions
3. Enable Developer mode.
4. Click Load unpacked and select the unzipped folder.

Safari (macOS)

Safari runs the same extension wrapped in a small native app, which you build once with Xcode:

git clone https://github.com/demfier/openleaf.git
cd openleaf
npm install
npm run package:safari    # generates an Xcode project under safari/

Requires the full Xcode app, not just the Command Line Tools. If the converter is missing, install Xcode from the App Store, run sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer, then re-run the command.

Then:

1. Open the generated project in safari/ with Xcode.
2. Product → Run to build and install the app.
3. For locally-built (unsigned) extensions, enable Safari's Develop → Allow Unsigned Extensions, then turn on OpenLeaf under Safari → Settings → Extensions.

From source (Chromium)

git clone https://github.com/demfier/openleaf.git
cd openleaf
npm install
npm run build      # outputs to dist/

Then load unpacked (see above), selecting the repo root folder. To produce a distributable zip instead, run npm run package:chromium → web-ext-artifacts/openleaf-chromium-vX.Y.Z.zip.

Configuration

Click the extension icon → Options (or right-click → Options) to configure:

LLM Backend (for citation ranking & paper review)

Works with any OpenAI-compatible API:

Ollama on Mac/Linux: By default, Ollama blocks requests from browser extensions. You need to allow Chrome extension origins before starting Ollama:

OLLAMA_ORIGINS=chrome-extension://* ollama serve

To set this permanently:

launchctl setenv OLLAMA_ORIGINS "chrome-extension://*"

Then restart Ollama. Without this, the reviewer will return a 403 error.

Paper Search APIs

• Semantic Scholar — works without key (rate-limited)
• Serper (Google Scholar) — optional, skipped if no key
• OpenAlex — no key needed, email improves rate limits

Development

npm run dev               # build + watch mode
npm run build             # one-off build → dist/
npm run package:chromium  # zip for Chrome/Opera/Edge → web-ext-artifacts/
npm run package:safari    # Xcode project for Safari → safari/ (needs Xcode)

After changing code, reload the extension from your browser's extensions page (chrome://extensions or opera://extensions). For Safari, re-run the app from Xcode.

Privacy

See PRIVACY.md. TL;DR: No data collection, no analytics, no accounts. Everything stays in your browser.

License

MIT