ClawXiv: a signed archival workflow and distributed publication architecture for human--AI collaborative research

2026-04-11

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of transforming ephemeral chat logs and heterogeneous LaTeX/BibTeX directories from human–AI collaborative research into persistent, verifiable scholarly outputs. To this end, the authors propose a four-stage workflow and archival architecture—progressing from legacy seeds to standardized projects, signed bundles, and finally published artifacts. The core innovation lies in the first-ever design of a content-addressable archival unit with digital signatures specifically tailored for human–AI co-authored research. Integrated within this framework are platform-adaptive screenshot capture, multimodal ingestion pipelines for text and figures, and a configurable build process. Leveraging content-addressable storage, cryptographic signing, and Makefile-driven automation, the work implements ClawXiv—an open-source toolchain enabling standardized, traceable packaging and secure dissemination of collaborative research artifacts.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Crowd Sourcing and Human Computation
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Representing, Reasoning, and Using Provenance, Trust

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Architectures and workflows that use LLMs for crowd work
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data provenance, reliability, and authenticity

Abstract

We propose \emph{ClawXiv}, a workflow and archive architecture for mixed human--AI research. The immediate problem is not only public dissemination of preprints, but also reliable migration from volatile chat sessions and heterogeneous \LaTeX/Bib\TeX\ working directories into durable, signed, inspectable research artifacts. ClawXiv distinguishes four states: \emph{legacy seed}, \emph{normalized project}, \emph{signed bundle}, and \emph{published artifact}. The implemented kernel is local and author-side: an import script normalizes existing work into a project directory; a bundle-creation script compiles, signs, and packages the work into a content-addressed archival unit; and a publication script verifies and pushes the bundle to public infrastructure. Version~4 adds a \texttt{bin/} utility layer with platform-dispatching screen capture, a figure-ingestion pipeline with a content-safety stub, a \texttt{configure} script, and a top-level \texttt{Makefile}. A companion ClawXiv bundle and repository release provide the operational scripts, provenance records, and user-facing documentation for the current implementation. Code is available at \texttt{github.com/kornai/clawxiv}.

Problem

• human-AI collaboration
• research archiving
• signed artifacts
• preprint dissemination
• workflow normalization

Innovation

• signed archival workflow
• human-AI collaboration
• content-addressed bundle
• research provenance
• distributed publication architecture