---
license: mit
tags:
  - arxiv
  - metadata
---

# ResearchIT metadata sidecar

A read-only SQLite mirror of the ResearchIT `papers` table (1,597,097 arXiv
papers), carrying the indexes the upstream Turso database does not have.

Consumed by [ResearchIT](https://huggingface.co/spaces/siddhm11/ResearchIT);
the Dockerfile downloads `metadata.sqlite` at image build time.

## Why

Turso has a single index (`arxiv_id`), so it serves point lookups quickly and
everything else via a full scan of 1.6M rows. Measured:

| query | Turso | sidecar |
|---|---|---|
| metadata for 50 ids | ~1,200 ms | 0.5 ms |
| trending by category | ~15,000 ms | 45 ms |
| `MIN/MAX(update_date)` | times out (>100 s) | 50 ms |

## Schema

- `papers` — arxiv_id, title, authors, abstract_preview, categories,
  primary_topic, update_date, citation_count, influential_citations
- `paper_categories` — one row per (paper, arXiv code); 2,953,666 rows across
  176 codes. Indexed on `(code, citation_count DESC)` and
  `(code, update_date DESC)`.

Coverage: `update_date` spans 2007-05-23 to 2025-05-30.

Rebuild with `scripts/build_metadata_sidecar.py` in the ResearchIT repo.