Distillate — Orchestrate ML auto-research agents
Description: Conjure autonomous ML experiments, distill insights from papers, transmute findings into new research. Powered by Claude Code.

Now with auto-experiment orchestration! Research preview — try it here

# Distillate

Your research alchemist.

Conjure ML experiments that run themselves.
Distill insights from everything you read.

`$ uv pip install distillate
$ cd desktop && npm run install:mac> uv pip install distillate
> cd desktop; npm run install:win`

GitHub ·  Powered by Claude Code

Research should move at the speed of your ideas, not your keyboard. Distillate turns your research questions into autonomous agents. Describe an experiment, and Nicolas, your research alchemist, spawns an auto-research agent to test it. Sync the papers you read, let your highlights spark ideas, test them with autonomous agents, track their progress as they descend gradients and relentlessly improve your north star metric… Rinse. Commit. Repeat. Distillate: science at the speed of thought.

## 🧪 The Laboratory

Spawn research agents. Steer them. Distill results.

/conjure Summon a research agent

Describe a research question. Nicolas sets up a git repo, drafts a prompt, and spawns an autonomous research agent with a time budget.

/steer Steer a running agent

Adjust goals, write steering instructions, or change direction based on early results.

/assay Deep analysis

Compare runs side-by-side, identify what moved the needle, and understand why certain approaches worked.

/distill Extract insights

Distill an experiment's full session history into key findings. Zero API calls — works from local logs.

/survey Scan all experiments

Quick overview of every experiment — new runs, breakthroughs, stuck agents, and what needs attention.

/transmute Papers → experiments

Turn paper insights into experiment ideas. Replicate results, test a variation, or apply a technique to your domain.

## 📚 The Library

Read, highlight, synthesize across your collection.

/brew Sync library

Sync papers from Zotero, extract highlights from any reading device, generate AI summaries, and refresh your notes.

/forage Discover papers

Browse trending research from HuggingFace, get personalized reading suggestions, and add papers to your queue.

/tincture Deep extraction

Focus on a single paper — extract key methods, results, and implications from your highlights and margin notes.

## How It Works

The research loop: read, experiment, learn, repeat.

📜 Add papers

Save papers to Zotero. Read and highlight on any device — reMarkable, iPad, desktop. Nicolas extracts everything and builds your knowledge base.

⚗️ Conjure experiment

Describe a hypothesis or point at a paper. Nicolas sets up a git repo, drafts the prompt, and spawns an autonomous research agent with a time budget.

🔬 Distill insights

Every run is tracked with metrics, diffs, and decisions. Rich lab notebooks with research insights land in your Obsidian vault.

✨ Transmute findings

Connect paper insights to experiment results. What you read informs what you try. The cycle continues, and knowledge compounds.

## 📊 Beyond Skills

Dashboards, charts, and email updates built into the workflow.

Reading insights Dashboard

Track your reading velocity, top topics, engagement scores, and most-cited papers. Available in the CLI, desktop, and weekly email digest.

Lab notebooks Auto-generated

Every experiment gets a rich lab notebook with run cards, metric sparklines, and AI-generated research insights — saved to your Obsidian vault.

Chart export Share results

Export clean metric charts as PNG — designed for sharing on X/Twitter or dropping into a paper. One command: `--chart`

Email updates Stay informed

Experiment reports when a session finishes, daily paper suggestions from your queue, and a weekly reading digest. Set up with `--email`

## ☁️ Cloud & Email

Stay in the loop. Free account, no credit card.

Email notifications

Get experiment reports when a session completes, daily paper suggestions, and a weekly digest. Sign up with `distillate --email` — toggle each type independently.

Connector status

Check what’s connected at a glance with `--connectors`. Configure Zotero, email, Obsidian, and reMarkable individually with `--setup`

State backup

Export your entire library to JSON with `--export-state` and restore it anywhere. Corrupt state? Auto-backed up as `.bak` — nothing is silently lost.

## Open-source at the core

The CLI powers everything. The desktop app is a window into it.

`$ uv pip install distillate`
$ distillate
─── ⚗️ Nicolas ──────────────────────────────
Your research alchemist.
🧪 4 experiments · 12 runs · 1 running
📚 42 papers read · 7 in queue
──────────────────────────────────────────────
> /conjure tiny-matmul --duration 30m
🧪 Spawning research agent...
Created distillate-xp-tiny-matmul
Research agent spawned — 30 min budget, will report when done.
> /survey
🔬 Scanning 4 experiments...
✓ tiny-matmul: 8 runs, best loss 0.0023 (-42%)
⚗ sigma-classify: 3 runs, accuracy 94.2% (goal: 95%)
─ rlhf-reward: 1 run, paused
─ tokenizer-v2: no runs yet

## Stay in the loop

Get notified about new features and releases. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

GitHub PyPI Install guide Documentation Power users guide

Built with love and coffee by Romain Lacombe.