Build a research workspace solo in a month with Claude
ParkourNote, built with Claude, has an agent that creates a project from a topic, searches arXiv and imports papers, plus a PDF reader with citation previews and translations, and MCP access for Claude or ChatGPT.
Source
sushiwang on Hacker News · 2026-09-28 · Project link
Written in our own words. Credit to the original author. Link checked 2026-10-24.
What they did
ParkourNote, built with Claude, has an agent that creates a project from a topic, searches arXiv and imports papers, plus a PDF reader with citation previews and translations, and MCP access for Claude or ChatGPT.
Result (as claimed)
One person shipped a full research app in a month.
Tools they used
Cost: Pricing depends on the tools you pick; check each official pricing page.
Set it up
Gather your sources
Collect the papers, notes, links or files you want to work from in one place.
Load them into the tool
Open Claude, arXiv, MCP and add your sources. Keep the original files so you can check claims later.
Ask focused questions
Ask for summaries, comparisons or connections with citations to the source passages.
Verify and save
Spot check claims against the sources, then save the output as notes you can reuse.
Copy the full setup prompt
Paste into your agent and it will walk you through the setup, asking before anything that sends, posts or spends.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Claude Code. Goal: Build a research workspace solo in a month with Claude What the original author did: ParkourNote, built with Claude, has an agent that creates a project from a topic, searches arXiv and imports papers, plus a PDF reader with citation previews and translations, and MCP access for Claude or ChatGPT. Reported result (as claimed by the author): One person shipped a full research app in a month. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49872233 Tools they used: Claude, arXiv, MCP Category: Research & learning Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Codex. Goal: Build a research workspace solo in a month with Claude What the original author did: ParkourNote, built with Claude, has an agent that creates a project from a topic, searches arXiv and imports papers, plus a PDF reader with citation previews and translations, and MCP access for Claude or ChatGPT. Reported result (as claimed by the author): One person shipped a full research app in a month. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49872233 Tools they used: Claude, arXiv, MCP Category: Research & learning Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Grok Bot. Goal: Build a research workspace solo in a month with Claude What the original author did: ParkourNote, built with Claude, has an agent that creates a project from a topic, searches arXiv and imports papers, plus a PDF reader with citation previews and translations, and MCP access for Claude or ChatGPT. Reported result (as claimed by the author): One person shipped a full research app in a month. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49872233 Tools they used: Claude, arXiv, MCP Category: Research & learning Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
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Guides for this use case
How to use AI agents for research and science · How to use ChatGPT for real projects and everyday tasks · How to build an MCP server for AI agents
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