---
title: "What is Biocompile? AI research workspace for life sciences"
description: "Biocompile is an AI research workspace for life-science R&D where you ask your lab files and the literature, run Python and R analyses and keep decisions."
url: https://www.biocompile.com/docs/introduction/
section: "Get started"
last_updated: 2026-10-23
---

# What is Biocompile? AI research workspace for life sciences

> Biocompile is an AI research workspace for life-science R&D where you ask your lab files and the literature, run Python and R analyses and keep decisions.

Source: https://www.biocompile.com/docs/introduction/. Index of all Biocompile documentation: https://www.biocompile.com/docs/index.md

Biocompile is an AI research workspace for life-science R&D teams: you ask questions of
your own files and the published literature, the analysis runs as Python and R code you
can read, and the reasoning stays on the project. You bring the files you already have,
such as sequencing results, plate-reader exports and papers.

The dead ends stay recorded next to the results, so a colleague can see months later why
a direction was chosen.

## How the pieces fit together

- A Biocompile project is the home of one line of research: its questions, hypotheses,
  evidence, plans and decisions, next to the files and results that produced them.
  **Research Projects** in the sidebar lists yours. See
  [Research projects: hypotheses, evidence and decisions](https://www.biocompile.com/docs/projects.md).
- The Knowledge Atlas is the file browser in Biocompile that shows your organization's
  files, indexed folders and research records in one place and previews them in the
  browser. See [Knowledge Atlas: upload, preview and edit lab files](https://www.biocompile.com/docs/knowledge-atlas.md).
- Biocompile's AI research assistant is an AI co-scientist that answers questions about
  your files and the literature, runs analyses as Python and R code in a private sandbox,
  and proposes changes to your projects as contributions. See
  [AI research assistant: ask your files and the literature](https://www.biocompile.com/docs/ai-research-assistant.md).
- A contribution is the reviewed set of changes through which work from a Biocompile
  conversation reaches a project. See
  [Contribute conversation work](https://www.biocompile.com/docs/ai-research-assistant.md#contribute-conversation-work).
- An Agent Skill is a written guide that tells the Biocompile assistant how to handle one
  kind of task: which database or method to use, how to prepare inputs, and how to read
  and report the results. **Agents → Agent Skills** lists them. See
  [Agent Skills: scientific workflows for the AI assistant](https://www.biocompile.com/docs/skills.md).

## Help and the guided tour

The **Help** menu in the top bar opens this documentation in a new tab. It also offers
**Replay onboarding**, a guided tour of the chat, a project and the Knowledge Atlas that
takes around 10 minutes. You can skip the tour at any time and replay it later.

## Your organization's policy

Your organization's security policy decides which models, tools and outside services are
available to you, and you can add stricter personal limits on top. See
[Organization security: AI models, tools and EU processing](https://www.biocompile.com/docs/organization-security.md).

## Common questions

### Is Biocompile an electronic lab notebook or a LIMS?

Biocompile includes electronic lab notebook records: experiments, protocols that are
published as frozen versions, sign-off of documents, and an organization audit log that
you can export as CSV. Each entry in the log is chained to the one before it, so a change
to an old entry is detectable. It does not include sample, freezer or reagent inventory, so a lab
that tracks samples keeps its LIMS next to Biocompile.

### Do I need to install anything to use Biocompile?

No. Biocompile runs in the browser, and the assistant runs its analysis code in a sandbox
that Biocompile provides.

## Next steps

- [Quick start: your first answer from your own lab data](https://www.biocompile.com/docs/quick-start.md)
- [AI research assistant: ask your files and the literature](https://www.biocompile.com/docs/ai-research-assistant.md)
- [Research projects: hypotheses, evidence and decisions](https://www.biocompile.com/docs/projects.md)

## Get access to Biocompile

Biocompile is used in the browser at https://app.biocompile.com. It is free to start and no payment method is required: sign up at https://app.biocompile.com/signup?mc_cta=docs-md&mc_path=/docs/introduction.md. If your team already uses Biocompile, ask an organization admin to invite you. Research teams that want hands-on setup can apply for the founder-led pilot at https://www.biocompile.com/pilot/. Questions: https://www.biocompile.com/contact/.