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Install the web app and use it offline

JARVIS is a Progressive Web App: you can install it like a native app on your phone, tablet, or computer. Previously loaded parts of the library remain available when the device loses its connection.

The offline cache requires a secure browser context: use HTTPS, or access JARVIS as localhost on the machine where it runs. A plain LAN IP exposes only /health/jarvis, not the web app, and cannot install a service worker. See Choosing how you access JARVIS for the supported options.

Installing

Android, and desktop Chrome / Edge

When the browser is ready to install JARVIS, a slim Install JARVIS banner appears near the top of the app, below the connectivity banner.

  1. Click Install.
  2. Confirm in the browser's own install prompt.

JARVIS then opens in its own window with its own icon. If you dismiss the banner, it stays dismissed on that device; you can still install later from the browser's own menu (for example Chrome's "Install app" item, usually behind the three-dot menu or an icon in the address bar).

iOS / iPadOS (Safari)

iOS does not offer the automatic install banner, but Safari's built-in "Add to Home Screen" does the same job:

  1. Open JARVIS in Safari.
  2. Tap the Share button (the square with an arrow pointing up).
  3. Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen.
  4. Confirm the name and tap Add.

A JARVIS icon now appears on your Home Screen. Opening it launches JARVIS in its own window, without Safari's address bar or tab chrome.

What works offline

After you have loaded supported pages while online, their saved data remains available if your device loses its connection. A slim banner appears at the top of the app to let you know you're offline and viewing saved data.

Available offline:

  • Previously loaded Library pages — the paper list and per-status counts. Inbox and Discover still require a connection.
  • Paper detail for papers you've previously opened — metadata, abstract, and any summary already generated.
  • Notes you've already saved on a paper (read-only offline; see the editing limitations below).
  • The structured extraction table, and your dashboard metrics and reading stats.
  • If a Learning Card is already open when the connection drops, its rating is queued on your device and sent to the server when you reconnect. Loading the next card still requires a connection, so this is recovery for an interrupted review rather than a full offline review session.

Not available offline — these all need a live model or a live network call, so JARVIS never pretends to serve them from a cache:

  • PDFs. Reading the original PDF of a paper requires a live download; it is not cached for offline use, even for papers you've opened before.
  • The Inbox and Discover feeds, and starting or continuing a Learning Card session after the already-open card has been rated.
  • Ask and chat (cross-paper and per-paper RAG), and any other action that calls the language model — discovery, summarizing, entity extraction, contradiction detection.
  • Writing anything other than a card review — editing notes, saving or skipping papers, exporting, uploading a PDF — while offline. These actions are disabled until you're back online.

If you reload the app itself while offline, the last-loaded version still opens (rather than showing the browser's own offline error page), so you can keep reading what's already cached.

  • Home & My Day — the library and daily-review surfaces that stay available offline.
  • Learning Cards — the review flow, including how offline ratings sync back once you reconnect.