AlphaXiv

AlphaXiv is the primary academic paper search and retrieval tool in Feynman. It provides access to a large corpus of research papers, discussion threads, citation metadata, and source-specific paper text when available. The researcher agent uses AlphaXiv as its primary source for academic content.

Authentication

AlphaXiv requires authentication. Set it up during initial setup or at any time:

feynman alpha login

Check your authentication status:

feynman alpha status

What it provides

AlphaXiv gives Feynman access to several capabilities that power the research workflows:

  • Paper search — Find papers by topic, author, keyword, or arXiv ID (feynman alpha search)
  • Paper content retrieval — Fetch alphaXiv-provided paper content or source-specific text when available (feynman alpha get)
  • Section-focused extraction (agent tool) — In-agent alpha_get_paper supports section and sections filters for abstract, introduction, methodology, experiments, results, discussion, limitations, and conclusion when available
  • Paper Q&A — Ask targeted questions about a paper’s content (feynman alpha ask)
  • Code inspection — Read files from a paper’s linked GitHub repository (feynman alpha code)
  • Annotations — Persistent local notes on papers across sessions (feynman alpha annotate)

How it is used

Feynman ships an alpha-research skill that teaches the agent to use Feynman’s alphaXiv tools for paper operations. The researcher agent uses them during workflows like deep research, literature review, and internal research review. When you provide an arXiv ID (like 2401.12345), the agent fetches the paper via feynman alpha get.

You can also use Feynman’s bundled alphaXiv client directly from the terminal:

feynman alpha search "scaling laws"
feynman alpha get 2401.12345
feynman alpha ask 2401.12345 "What optimizer did they use?"
feynman alpha code https://github.com/org/repo src/model.py

Configuration

Authentication tokens are stored in ~/.feynman/auth/ and persist across sessions. No additional configuration is needed beyond logging in.

Without AlphaXiv

If you choose not to authenticate with AlphaXiv, Feynman still functions but with reduced academic search capabilities. It falls back to web search for finding papers, which works for well-known work but misses AlphaXiv citation metadata, discussion threads, and source-specific paper text when available. For serious research workflows, AlphaXiv authentication is strongly recommended.