Help

01Sign in

• When the admin creates your account, you receive an invitation email. Click the link in it to set your password, then sign in with your account and password. The link is valid for 7 days and works only once; if it has expired, ask the admin to send a new one.
• New computer or browser: the first time you sign in with your password, a 6-digit verification code is sent to your email, and you get in only after entering it (valid for 10 minutes). Verified browsers won't be asked again; you can see and remove them in “Profile”. Signing in with Google needs no code.
• Forgot your password: on the sign-in page, click “Forgot password?”, enter your account or email, and follow the link in the email to reset it. If your account has no email on file, only the admin can reset it.
• “Account & spaces” in the top-right corner of the workbench takes you back to the portal; “Sign out” is right next to it. The portal’s “My spaces” page has your spaces, recent notices and API keys on the left, and your account on the right: name and password (open “Change password” to fill it in), your own AI key and signed-in devices (click your name in the top-right corner to jump straight to them).
• Notices: notices from the admin (for example, about a new release) pop up once when you open the portal or the workbench. To read one again after closing it, look under “Recent notices” at the bottom of the portal home page.

02Projects

• Click the “砚” in the top-left corner to return to the project list. The most recently modified projects come first, and your own projects are listed together with those shared with you. Click a row to open that project; tagging, downloading as a zip, duplicating, sharing, renaming and archiving are all in the “⋯” menu at the end of the row. The search box at the top finds projects by name or tag, and you can also click a tag to filter by it.
• New project: pick a conference or journal template (ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, CVPR, IEEE, ACM…) and get a skeleton that compiles right away. For venues not on the list, have the AI find the official template online and set it up.
• New from zip: zip an existing paper folder and upload it; each zip becomes one project (zips exported from Overleaf work too).
• New from a GitHub repository (not available on the China site): under “New project”, enter “owner/repository” or paste the repository URL (once GitHub is connected, the list offers your own repositories). The whole repository is cloned with its history, and the project is linked to it, so you can push and pull under “Version control”. Public repositories can be imported without connecting GitHub.
• Archive projects you no longer need or move them to the trash first; only projects in the trash can be deleted permanently.

03Write & compile

• The file tree is on the left; click a file to edit it in the middle. Your work is autosaved once you pause for a second or so, or press Ctrl+S. If someone else or the AI changes the same file at the same time, you're warned when saving; nothing is silently overwritten.
• The upload button above the file tree uploads several files or a whole folder at once, up to 200 MB per file; zips can be extracted in place. Word, Excel and PPT files can be edited online; PDFs and images open in a preview.
• Open a .tex file and click “Compile PDF”. The PDF is written next to the .tex file, replacing the previous one. You can also click it from a chapter file: the main file is found and compiled automatically. If there are errors, each one is listed below; click one to jump to that line.
• Jump from PDF to source: double-click any spot in the compiled PDF to open the matching .tex file at that line (this also works for chapter files pulled in with \input). Double-click an entry in the reference list to jump to that entry in the .bib file. PDFs compiled before this feature existed need to be recompiled once. To search or print, click “Browser viewer ↗” above the PDF.
• Auto-closing: typing { [ ( adds the closing half, and so does $ in LaTeX (typing $ inside $ $ gives $$ … $$); with text selected, it wraps the selection; pressing Enter after \begin{…} adds the matching \end{…}.
• LaTeX completion: in a .tex file, type \ and a few letters and suggestions appear under the cursor (\be gives \begin first; common commands come first). After \begin{ you get common environments, and picking one writes the whole block including \end{…} (figure comes with \includegraphics, \caption and \label); \end{ offers the environment still open; \ref{ and \eqref{ offer the \label names in the file; \cite{ offers the entries in the project’s .bib files, with year and title. ↑↓ to choose, Enter or Tab to accept, Esc to close; keep typing to narrow the list.
• Keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+/ comments or uncomments the selected lines, Ctrl+F finds and Ctrl+H replaces (across the whole file), Ctrl+B / Ctrl+I make text bold / italic, Ctrl+Enter compiles, Alt+↑ / ↓ moves lines, and Shift+Alt+↑ / ↓ duplicates them. The “⌨ Shortcuts” button at the bottom right of the editor lists them all (use ⌘ instead of Ctrl on a Mac).
• Split view: click “Split view” at the far right of the tab bar to write .tex on the left and see the PDF on the right; drag the divider in the middle to resize. In split view, every PDF you open (compiled, or clicked in the file tree) goes on the right; click “Close split view” to return to a single pane. If the window gets too narrow, it switches back to a single pane automatically. The − / ＋ buttons above the PDF can zoom below 100%, keeping the page centered with margins on both sides; your zoom level is remembered.
• Comments on PDFs: select some text on a PDF and click “Highlight” or “Comment”. Highlights are drawn on the page, and highlights with comments get a small numbered bubble; click a highlight to read the thread, reply or mark it resolved. Everyone in the project sees them (people with read-only access can comment too); only the author and the project owner can delete. The “Comments” button above the PDF hides or shows them. After recompiling, text may move and highlights can end up slightly off.
• Chinese documents (ctex, xeCJK) and documents that use fontspec are compiled with xelatex automatically; you can also force it by putting % !TEX program = xelatex on the first line of the file.

04AI assistant

• Click “Assistant” at the bottom of the left sidebar to open the panel on the right. Each project has its own set of conversations; when you switch projects, you see that project's conversations. Click × to delete a conversation you no longer need.
• Voice input (lab.vibescience.net): the 🎤 left of “Send” in the AI panel — tap to start talking, tap again to stop (up to 90 seconds at a time). The words land in the input box so you can fix them before sending. The recording is turned into text on our own server, not by another company. The first time, the browser asks for microphone access; allow it. The China site is still on http, where browsers do not allow the microphone; use your phone keyboard’s voice input there.
• Read aloud: every AI reply has “🔊 Read aloud” below it, using your phone’s or computer’s own voice (code blocks are skipped); tap again to stop.
• Three modes:
  • Read-only: only reads files and looks things up, and changes nothing;
  • Edit & run (default): shows you every file change or command first and runs it only after you approve;
  • Auto: the AI decides for itself, with fewer confirmations and more speed. Best when you know exactly what you want it to do.
• Grok (available only on lab.vibescience.net): choose “grok-4.7” in the panel's model menu to switch to Grok. Reasoning effort has three levels (low, medium, high); the default is low. Grok has no “Edit & run”: it offers only Read-only and Auto, and in Auto it edits files and runs commands without asking first.
• The AI can see only the current project: not your other projects, not other people's projects, and not the accounts or configuration on the server. It can search the web for papers; references it finds are added to “Library” marked “Unverified”, for you to confirm.
• If the AI breaks something, don't worry: every AI turn that changes files is recorded as a version (your own edits from before it started become a separate version). Open “Version control”, see what it changed, and restore the version from before it started.

05Library

• “Library” in the left sidebar has two tabs: References shows the project's .bib files, defaulting to the one the main text actually uses; Reading notes lists the papers you or the AI have recorded as read.
• “Verify this .bib” checks every entry against public databases such as OpenAlex, Crossref and Semantic Scholar, and flags entries whose year or authors don't match, as well as entries found nowhere that may be fabricated. A few dozen entries take a minute or two; the check runs in the background, so you can do other things meanwhile.

06Pre-submission check

Open “Pre-submission check” (✓) in the left sidebar. Choose the main file to submit and the mode (Submission · anonymous review or Final · camera-ready). Leave the page limit empty to apply previous years' rules for the detected venue, then click “Start check”. One run covers:

• compile errors, cross-references printed as ?? in the PDF, and lines that overflow the text block;
• whether the main text (counted up to the page where the references begin) exceeds the page limit;
• in anonymous versions, leaked author names, emails, affiliations, acknowledgments or personal GitHub links; in final versions, whether the authors are printed;
• keys cited in the text but missing from the .bib, and duplicate keys;
• whether every reference cited in the text actually exists and its details match;
• leftover TODOs and ??, and fonts the submission system won't accept.

Page limits change from year to year. The defaults in the report come from previous years, so go by this year's call for papers; if it differs, change the number in the box, and your value is saved with the project.

07Sharing

• In the project list, open the project's menu, click “Share with others”, enter your colleague's account, and choose read-only or can edit. They receive an invite, and the project shows up in their list only after they accept.
• The same panel shows who the project is shared with and whether they have accepted, and lets you “Stop sharing”.
• You can “Duplicate” a project someone shared with you into your own copy; the two are fully independent.

08Versions & git

• “Version control” holds the project's version history. The editor's autosave only keeps your files safe; it does not record versions. Versions are recorded automatically when the AI finishes a turn that changed files, after half an hour without edits, and before and after a restore; you can also click “Save snapshot now” or commit with a short message of your own at any time. Click a version to see what it changed (changed words are highlighted) or to compare it with the current files; if something breaks, you can restore any version.
• Sync with GitHub (like Overleaf’s GitHub Sync; not available on the China site): first connect your own GitHub on the portal’s “My spaces” page — click “Connect GitHub” to authorize on GitHub, or paste a personal access token (which can be limited to certain repositories). Then, in the GitHub section of the project’s “Version control”, choose “Create a GitHub repository” (all current versions are pushed to it right away) or “Link an existing repository”. Once linked:
  • “↑ Push to GitHub” first saves changes that are not in a version yet (under your name, so GitHub shows them as yours), then pushes. If GitHub has versions that are not here, it does not force the push and asks you to pull first.
  • “↓ Pull from GitHub” merges the new versions from GitHub, and the files in the editor update with them. If both sides changed the same lines, nothing is merged and you are told which files.
  • Opening “Version control” checks GitHub for new changes and lists the incoming versions; you can also click “↻ Check for changes”.
  Pushing and pulling use the GitHub sign-in of whoever clicks, so everyone on a shared project connects their own GitHub; only the project owner can link or unlink the repository. Tokens are stored encrypted on the server, where the AI cannot read them, and are never written into the project’s .git folder.
• To use git on your own computer, send your SSH public key (a .pub file such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub) to the admin to register; access can be limited to a single project. Then copy the git clone address from the “Version control” page.
• API keys for the command line and scripts are created on the “My spaces” page and take effect once the admin approves them. A key is shown only once, so save it right away.

09On a phone

• On a phone the top bar has only the “砚” logo, the project name and ☰: sharing, language, contacting the admin, your account and signing out are under ☰.
• The pages are in a row at the bottom of the screen: Files, Research, Versions, Library, Submission, AI. Tap “Files” to slide the folder tree in from the left, and tap again to hide it.
• The handiest thing on a phone is talking to the AI: open a project → tap AI at the bottom → press 🎤 and say what you need, or use your keyboard’s voice input. You can lock the phone while the AI runs; refresh when you come back to see how far it got.
• Open files are in a row at the top that scrolls sideways; buttons such as Save and Compile are in the row below, which also scrolls. PDFs and images open directly.

10Good to know

• Never send passwords, API keys or private keys to the AI or put them in project files.
• Inkstone is for research and academic work only. Sensitive topics are refused outright and logged.
• A project's .git folder is maintained by version control: you can't see or change it on the web, and the AI can only read it.
• Everyone has a quota for AI usage and project storage, and you're notified when you run out; ask the admin if you need more.
• Several conversations at once: if the AI is busy running commands and you want to ask something else, click ＋ at the top of the AI panel to start a new conversation; both can run at the same time (up to three per person, two per project). The ⧉ button at the top right copies the whole conversation as text.
• Your own key: on the portal’s “My spaces” page, under “Your own AI key”, click “Add your own key” and paste your own Claude key (an Anthropic API key, or a subscription token generated on your own computer with claude setup-token; on the China site, a DeepSeek API key). The AI then uses your key, and it does not count against the quota from your admin. The key is kept in the server’s key proxy, where the AI cannot read it, and the page only shows its last four characters; you can switch back to the admin’s account at any time.
• Each person runs one AI conversation at a time, and each project also runs only one at a time (so two conversations never edit the same files at once); other people using AI in other projects don't affect you.

Ran into a problem, saw a strange error, or want a feature? Click “Contact admin” next to “Help” in the top-right corner and write it down (your current space and project are included automatically). Once the admin replies, click that button again to read the reply; a small red dot lights up on the button when there's a new one. If an error message says “please contact the admin”, it usually means something needs fixing on the server side, not that you did something wrong.