Your first research project

This tutorial takes one question through a complete Atlas research loop. You will create a project, add a source, ask about it, inspect one citation, and save what you learned in a note.

What this page covers

Complete the first-use workflow: create a project, add a source, ask a question, check a citation, and record a note.

What you need

• One source you can legally import: a PDF, a web article, a YouTube video, or an academic paper.
• A specific question you want to answer with that source.
• Ten to fifteen minutes for processing after you add the source.

Choose a source that contains a claim, method, or result you want to investigate. A paper, report, or focused article works better for this tutorial than a home page or an unreadable PDF.

1. Create a project

Create a project for the question or source set you are investigating. Use a name that will still make sense when you return later.

Good names:

• "Carbon removal literature review"
• "RAG evaluation papers"
• "Client research: AI note-taking tools"

Avoid generic names like "Test" or "New project." Atlas organizes everything by project, so the name helps you stay oriented across sessions.

2. Add one source

Add a PDF, website, YouTube video, or academic paper to the project. If you are unsure which type to use, read Source types.

After adding the source, wait for processing to finish. Processing is what makes the source available for chat, citations, summaries, and knowledge maps. It typically takes one to three minutes.

If processing fails, stop here and read Troubleshoot source processing. A source that did not process cannot produce reliable citations.

3. Inspect the source before asking questions

Open the source from the project list. Check that the content looks correct.

For PDFs, skim the abstract, headings, and conclusion. For web pages and transcripts, check that the visible text is what you expected.

This check catches incomplete imports and wrong-document uploads before they affect the answer.

4. Ask a specific question

Open chat and ask a narrow question the source can answer. Good first questions:

• What is the main claim of this source?
• What evidence supports that claim?
• What methods does the source use?
• What limitations does the source identify?

Read the answer once for relevance. Then check whether its important claims include citation badges.

5. Verify one citation

Select a citation badge in the answer. The source viewer opens at the passage Atlas used. Read the surrounding text so you can see the claim, its evidence, and any nearby limitation.

You are confirming that the source supports the claim Atlas made. If it does, you have completed the citation verification loop. If the citation does not match, ask a narrower follow-up or read Troubleshoot citations and weak answers.

6. Save a finding

Create a note for the insight you want to keep. Include:

• The claim in your own words.
• The source that supports it, linked with @.
• Why it matters for the project.

This turns a one-off chat answer into a durable, linked record.

Check your result

Your project should now have:

• One processed source.
• One chat answer with a citation you verified.
• One note that mentions the source it draws from.

Next steps

• Add a second source: Add your first source
• Synthesize across sources: Synthesize across multiple sources
• Learn how citations work: How Atlas grounds answers in sources

Choose and add your first source

In this guide, you will choose one source, add it to an Atlas project, wait for processing, and confirm it is ready to use in chat, citations, and maps.

What you need

• An Atlas project. If you do not have one, read Create and manage projects first.
• One source: a PDF file, a web article URL, a YouTube video URL, or an academic paper title or DOI.

Choose a source that will work well

For your first source, pick something with real content and a text-based format.

Good choices:

• A PDF paper with selectable text
• A public article or report URL
• A YouTube lecture or talk with a transcript
• An academic paper you can find by title, DOI, or arXiv ID

Avoid for your first test:

• A large folder of files
• A scanned PDF without selectable text
• A page behind a login or paywall
• A short page with little content

A clean first source makes it easy to confirm that Atlas is working correctly.

Add the source to your project

Open the project and select the add-source option. Choose the source type that matches what you have:

When in doubt about which type to use, read Source types.

Wait for processing to finish

Adding a source and processing it are separate steps. Atlas needs to process the source before it can power chat, citations, maps, summaries, and search.

The source shows a processing indicator while Atlas works. Do not judge answer quality until that indicator clears. Weak or missing answers during processing usually mean Atlas does not yet have usable text from the source.

Inspect the imported content

Open the source from the project list and check:

• The title matches the source you meant to add.
• Body text, pages, or transcript text is visible.
• The content looks correct rather than truncated or garbled.

For PDFs, search for a phrase from the abstract to confirm text extraction worked. For websites, check that the main article body imported. For YouTube, confirm the transcript text appears.

Ask a verification question

Ask one question that the source should be able to answer:

• What is this source about?
• What are the main claims?
• What methods or evidence does it use?

The answer should name or quote from the source you added. If it does not, check whether the source finished processing before asking more questions.

Check your result

The source is ready when:

• It appears in the project list without a processing indicator.
• The viewer shows readable text.
• Chat can answer a basic question about it with a citation.

Next steps

• Import your next source: Import a PDF into Atlas
• Add a web article: Add a website source
• Search for papers: Search and add academic papers
• Fix a source that did not process: Troubleshoot source processing