Distill – AI Paper-to-Insights

A full-stack AI web app that transforms academic papers into 7 interactive output formats: infographic, quiz, flashcards, mind-map, data table, slides, and report. Upload a PDF or paste an arXiv link; Gemini 2.5 Flash reads the paper natively (no text extraction) and generates structured, renderable output. Features Firebase Auth with Google sign-in, per-user token quota enforcement, rate limiting, Firestore persistence, and a Vercel serverless backend with cold-start pre-warming.

Proof points

  • 7 Output Types
  • PDF + arXiv Support
  • Token Quota System

Technologies

Next.js 15, TypeScript, Gemini 2.5 Flash, Firebase, Tailwind CSS, Vercel, Firestore, Zod

Links

Problem

Academic papers are dense and time-consuming to digest. Existing summarization tools produce flat text, not the interactive formats (quizzes, flashcards, mind-maps) that aid actual learning and retention.

Approach

Built a Next.js 15 app with 7 distinct Gemini prompts — each targeting a different output schema validated with Zod. Eliminated all local PDF parsing by sending the file as Gemini inlineData (native PDF understanding, handles scanned docs). Added cold-start pre-warming, per-user token quotas, and rate limiting for a production-ready multi-tenant system.

Results

Deployed at distill.shiverion.com. Supports PDF upload up to 20 MB and arXiv URL input. Generates 7 interactive output types. Token quota and rate limiting enable safe public access. Cold-start mitigation (warmup GET on dashboard mount) reduces first-request timeout failures on Vercel Hobby.

Distill – AI Paper-to-Insights: Engineering Report

1. Executive Summary

Distill is a production-deployed Next.js 15 application that takes any academic paper (PDF upload or arXiv URL) and generates one of 7 structured output formats using Gemini 2.5 Flash's native PDF understanding. Each output type is a purpose-built interactive React renderer — not a flat text dump.

2. Output Formats

  • Infographic — visual key-points card with stats and takeaways
  • Quiz — interactive multiple-choice questions with answer reveal
  • Flashcards — flip-card deck for concept review
  • Mind Map — branch-grid concept hierarchy
  • Data Table — multi-table structured data extracted from the paper
  • Slides — paginated viewer with section-by-section breakdown
  • Report — long-form written summary with structured sections

3. PDF Pipeline

Eliminated all local PDF parsing (pdfjs-dist worker resolution fails in Vercel serverless). Instead, the PDF is base64-encoded client-side and sent as Gemini inlineData (up to 20 MB). Gemini reads it natively — including scanned/image-only PDFs via OCR. arXiv URLs are fetched server-side and passed as extracted text.

4. Backend Architecture

  • /api/analyze POST: multipart form (PDF) or JSON body (URL), auth check, rate limit, token quota pre-check, Gemini call, Firestore write, cache revalidation
  • /api/analyze GET: no-op pre-warm endpoint called on dashboard mount to keep the Vercel container alive
  • maxDuration = 60 set on the route handler (effective on Pro plan; on Hobby the hard cap is 10s)
  • Token estimation for PDFs uses base64 size formula to avoid an extra Gemini API round-trip

5. Auth & Quota System

  • Firebase Auth (Google Sign-In via popup with COOP header same-origin-allow-popups)
  • httpOnly session cookie managed by /api/auth/session POST
  • onIdTokenChanged listener refreshes the session cookie when Firebase rotates the token (~hourly)
  • Per-user token quotas enforced in lib/usage.ts — exception for the owner email (unlimited)
  • Rate limiting per UID via lib/rate-limiter.ts

6. Security

  • Content Security Policy headers with Firebase, Google Auth, and Vercel Live allowlists
  • Firebase service account key and .env.local blocked from git via .gitignore
  • No client-side API key exposure — all Gemini calls go through the serverless route
  • Error responses never leak internal error messages to the client

7. Deployment

  • Live at https://distill.shiverion.com (Cloudflare DNS → Vercel)
  • Custom domain: A record distill → 76.76.21.21 (DNS only, no proxy)
  • Vercel project: paprika under izzulhaq-iqbals-projects