Research tasks

Research tasks let an assistant work on a copy while you keep control of the manuscript. Give it a job, follow its progress, and bring back the files you want.

Create a task

1. Open Research workspace → Tasks.
2. Create a task and choose a starter, or write your own prompt.
3. Give the task a title. Describe the evidence to use and the files it should produce.
4. Select an available Agent and model, then choose Create task.
5. Start the task when it is ready.

Starter	A useful brief
Literature review	Find recent work for one research question and save a source table with identifiers
Evidence audit	Check the claims in one section against the supplied references
Analysis	Summarize a dataset and save the script, results table, and interpretation
Manuscript revision	Revise a named section against specific feedback
Response to reviewers	Map each reviewer point to a response and a manuscript change

Keep the brief small enough to review. Name the relevant source files or linked folders and say what should remain unchanged.

Follow progress

The task queue records waiting, running, review, completed, failed, and cancelled work. Open a task to read its session and inspect outputs. You can edit queued work, cancel a run, or retry a task. Dependencies keep one task waiting until the work it needs is ready.

Review the result

When a task reaches review, inspect its changed files and diffs. Select the files you want to bring into the manuscript, then apply them. Discarding a result leaves the task history available.

Oleafly checks the destination against the version the task started from. If you have since changed a file, it refuses the conflicting apply and keeps the result available for review. Reconcile that file before trying again.

Choose an available agent

Use a configured built-in model or a supported CLI agent. The picker shows availability for the current platform and runtime.

Isolated CLI tasks use the operating system’s isolation tools on macOS and Linux. They are unavailable on Windows; Codex isolated tasks are also unavailable on macOS with the current runtime profile. Interactive assistant sessions are a separate mode.

Chat or task?

Use chat for a conversation and edits in the active project. Use a task when you want a separate copy, a recorded job, and a final file review. Helpers delegated during an ordinary chat work in that chat’s project; they are not isolated research tasks.