🔬 OpenLab Notebook

AI-Powered Lab Notebook for Researchers — Free & Open Source

A modern, privacy-first electronic lab notebook designed for PhD students, postdocs, and research scientists. All data stored locally in your browser — no cloud, no subscriptions, no data harvesting.

Why OpenLab?

Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs) are failing researchers. A 2026 survey found that scientists view existing ELNs as "glorified filing cabinets" that cause:

• Experiment duplication (wasting months of work)
• Workflow bottlenecks
• Shadow AI use (researchers secretly using ChatGPT because their ELN is useless)

OpenLab is different:

• 🏠 Offline-first — All data in localStorage, works without internet
• 🤖 AI-ready — Connect your own OpenAI/Claude API key for research assistance
• 📋 Structured experiments — Hypothesis, protocol, variables, observations, results
• 📤 Export anywhere — JSON, Markdown, or Print to PDF
• 🔒 Privacy-first — Your data never leaves your machine
• 💰 Free forever — MIT licensed, no premium tiers

Features

• Experiment management with status tracking
• Step-by-step protocol builder
• Variables & controls table (Independent, Dependent, Control, Confounding)
• Real-time observation logging
• Results & analysis section
• References & citations
• Statistics dashboard
• Full-text search
• AI research assistant panel (BYOK — Bring Your Own Key)
• Export to JSON, Markdown, or PDF

Quick Start

1. Open index.html in any browser
2. Start creating experiments
3. That's it. No signup, no install, no server.

Connect AI (Optional)

1. Get an API key from OpenAI or Anthropic
2. Click the AI panel settings
3. Paste your key
4. Ask questions about your experiments

Deploy

• GitHub Pages: Push to repo → Settings → Pages → Deploy from main
• Vercel: Connect repo → Auto-deploy
• Local: Just open index.html

License

MIT — Do whatever you want with it.

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