✨ SciLynk v3 — Complete UI Overhaul & Polish

v3 is the complete visual redesign we promised in v2. Every page now uses a cohesive design system with semantic tokens, the entire landing experience is rebuilt from scratch, entity pages are consistent and beautiful across light and dark modes, and dozens of rough edges have been smoothed out. This is the SciLynk that feels polished, modern, and ready for prime time.

🎨 Design System & Theming

• Semantic design tokens across the board: Every component now uses bg-surface-base, text-text-primary, border-stroke-base, and other semantic tokens instead of hardcoded colors. Light and dark themes work consistently everywhere.
• Theme toggle simplified: Removed the "system" option — users now toggle directly between light and dark modes for a clearer experience.
• Entity pages unified: Authors, topics, institutions, sources, and funders all share the same visual language, typography, and component styling. No more mixing v1 and v2 aesthetics.
• Font consistency: Fixed font mismatches across entity pages. Headers now use the serif font family consistently, and body text uses the correct weights.

🏠 Landing Page Rebuilt

• New hero with search-first design: The landing page now opens with a large search bar as the primary call to action, making it clear that you can start using SciLynk immediately. Marketing copy moved below.
• Theme-locked to dark mode: The landing page stays dark regardless of user preference, with new dark-optimized images for every section.
• Simplified navigation: Removed About, Blog, Changelog, and Pricing links from the header. Navigation is now just Logo, Login, and Get Started.
• "Free forever" messaging: Added prominent text in the hero section making it clear that SciLynk is free with no credit card required.
• Authenticated user redirect: Logged-in users visiting / now go straight to /home instead of seeing the marketing page.
• Removed "Early Access" badge: SciLynk is no longer positioned as early access — it's production-ready.
• Updated feature copy: Rewrote all feature descriptions to focus on current capabilities. Removed references to deprecated features like Lynx AI.

📁 Collections Overhaul

• All modals updated to v2 styling: Delete, Edit, Create, Share, and Save modals now use semantic tokens, modern borders, and consistent spacing.
• Fixed save functionality bug: Collections now load correctly when clicking the save button on papers. Previously showed "you have no collections" even when you did.
• Notes feature fixed: Collection paper notes now save correctly. Fixed API parameter mismatches and removed incorrect plan restrictions.
• Modern controls toolbar: Search input and "New Collection" button updated with v2 styling and proper spacing.
• Share UI improvements: Updated team member autocomplete and permission dropdowns with clean hover states and semantic tokens.

🌐 Entity Pages Polish

• Filter widget redesigned: All entity pages now use a consistent, modern filter panel that works in both light and dark modes. Removed old v1 styling.
• Topics removed from some pages: Removed the broken topic association widget from entity pages where it wasn't working reliably.
• Stats section improvements: Fixed reversed year ordering in publication graphs. Years now go from old to new (left to right) as expected.
• Papers use feed card design: Entity pages now display papers using the same card component as the home feed, ensuring visual consistency.
• Sub-navigation alignment fixed: Hero sections and navigation bars are now properly aligned with the content below them.

🔒 Authentication & Onboarding

• Profile page removed: Deleted the unused profile page and all references to it from navigation and command palette.
• Invite code system removed: Registration no longer requires or asks for invite codes on the frontend or backend.
• Onboarding skip fixed: "Skip for now" now goes to /search instead of creating a redirect loop back to onboarding.

🔍 Search & Error Handling

• Removed backend service names from error messages: Search errors, feed errors, and API failures now show generic messages like "Search error 500" instead of exposing internal service names to users.
• Better malformed query handling: Invalid search syntax (like unmatched quotes) now fails gracefully without showing backend service names.

💄 Typography & Visual Consistency

• Serif font for headers: All major headings across the app now use the serif font family for a more sophisticated look.
• Consistent text sizing: Body text, captions, and labels use consistent sizing across all pages.
• Icon alignment: Fixed icon and text alignment issues throughout entity pages and navigation.
• Proper hover states: Buttons, links, and interactive elements now have consistent hover animations using semantic tokens.

🔧 Bug Fixes

• Collection paper cards: Fixed prop passing and state management for note editing.
• Filter synchronization: Filters now properly update when changing between entity page tabs.
• Empty state handling: Improved messaging when search results, feeds, or collections are empty.
• Theme persistence: Theme selection now persists correctly across page navigation.

🗑️ Removed

• Profile page (/profile) and all associated components
• Invite code system (frontend and backend validation)
• "System" theme option from theme toggle
• Sunsetting modal from landing page
• All light mode images and theme-switching logic from landing page
• "Learn more" button from landing hero
• Legacy v1 filter widgets from entity pages
• Topic association display from entity pages (temporarily, pending reliability improvements)

📚 What's Next

v3 completes the visual overhaul. Future releases will focus on feature expansion:

• Smart collections with query-based auto-updates
• Drag-and-drop paper reordering in collections
• Bulk selection and management for collections
• Public collection sharing with unique URLs
• Additional export formats (CSL-JSON, RIS) alongside BibTeX
• Enhanced paper notes with rich text editing

Questions or feature requests? Reach out.

🚀 SciLynk v2 — Topics, Reliability, & a New Foundation

SciLynk is back, and v2 is the biggest release we've ever shipped. After a long hiatus, we rebuilt the foundation: every entity page now uses the modern Topics model, the auth + API surface is locked down, the framework is current, and the codebase shed nearly 60% of its weight along the way. This release is the platform that the v2 UI revamp (coming feature-by-feature) is being built on.

✨ New

• Topics replace Concepts: The deprecated Concepts model has been replaced with a cleaner four-level Topics hierarchy (domain → field → subfield → topic). All paper, author, and search pages now use Topics; URLs moved from /concept/C… to /topic/T…. Old URLs return 404 — this was a clean break, not a redirect.
• Sources replace Journals: /journal/S… is now /source/S… and the entity page recognizes journals, repositories, conferences, ebook platforms, and book series with appropriate labels.
• Topic hierarchy on every paper: Every paper now shows its full domain → field → subfield → topic breadcrumb, with the primary topic highlighted.
• Funding gets a proper home: The paper detail page now shows funders and individual award IDs side-by-side, joined automatically when both are present.
• Affiliation now plural: Authors can have more than one current affiliation; we show all of them.

💡 Improvements

• Reliability: Three pages that used to return 500 errors (paper detail, funder, concept) now render cleanly. Every entity page is null-safe against incomplete data from the research database.
• Performance: First-load JavaScript for the paper page dropped from 140 kB to 120 kB. Twelve unused npm dependencies removed.
• Modern stack: Next.js 13 → 15. Mongoose 6 → 8. Stripe 12 → 17. TypeScript is set up for incremental migration.
• Centralized API configuration: Backend API requests are now centralized for easier maintenance and configuration updates.
• HTTP status codes: Eighteen routes that used to return 200 on errors now return proper 4xx codes.
• Atomic credit accounting for Lynx: Credits are now reserved server-side before the OpenAI call, refunded if it fails, and impossible for the client to skip.

🔒 Security

• Verification tokens are cryptographic now: We replaced the forgeable base64 _id|email tokens (anyone who knew your _id could verify your account) with bcrypt-hashed random tokens.
• Collection access is enforced: A bug let any logged-in user delete or modify any collection by ID. Owner / editor checks are now in place on every mutation.
• /api/summarize is no longer a free OpenAI proxy: It now requires a session and reserves credits before calling OpenAI. Previously anyone who found the URL could burn the OpenAI key.
• All 41 API routes enforce HTTP method: GET on a POST-only route returns 405 instead of accidentally running.
• Defense in depth: Routes validate input and check auth before connecting to the database, so a malformed call gets a clean 400 even during a DB outage.
• Stripe webhook is idempotent: We process each event once via a unique index; retries no longer create duplicate invoice rows.

🗑️ Removed

• Legacy /concept and /journal pages (URLs return 404; replaced by /topic and /source).
• The unauthenticated /api/summarize Edge proxy (rebuilt as a session-gated Node route).
• The client-side /api/credits/consume endpoint (credits are deducted server-side now).
• Orphaned routes: /api/feed/getFeedNames, /api/follow/getFollowedAuthor, /api/user/plan, /api/user/inactive.
• All AWS SES email infrastructure (the wiring was broken; restoration via Resend/Postmark coming in a future release).
• The moment, axios, gpt3-tokenizer, openai, aws-sdk, @aws-sdk/client-ses, @next-auth/mongodb-adapter, eventsource-parser, react-rnd, react-highlight-words, validator, and fs npm packages — all unused.

🔜 Coming Next

v2 is the foundation. The next series of releases (one feature at a time) brings the UI overhaul:

• A cohesive light/dark theme with a system-aware toggle
• A Twitter-style elegant feed (and proper onboarding for new users)
• A redesigned paper page with inline AI summaries, citation graph, FWCI badges, and a citation generator (BibTeX, RIS, CSL-JSON)
• Search-as-you-type with a global cmd-k palette
• Restored email so saved searches and verification actually work end-to-end

Have something you'd like to see in v2's feature releases? Email us.

Free Enterprise Features

This week's update introduces the ability for non-enterprise users to use our AI-powered search, as well as a few bug fixes/improvements.

✨ New

• Lynx: Free users generate AI summaries of their searches
  • For any search term with open access publications, Lynx AI will provide a comprehensive summary for your query
  • Summaries include a general synopsis, relevant key findings, AND sources (YES, these are real sources!)
  • To view sources, click the title of the source and it will open its SciLynk's paper profile

💡 Improvements

• Collections: UI-refreshments
• Emails: Notification emails follow a more robust structure
  • Some users experienced daily notification emails which weren't supposed to be sent (fixed)

Collection Notes

This week's update introduces the ability for enterprise users to add notes to papers in collections, as well as a few bug fixes/improvements.

✨ New

• Collection Notes: Enterprise users can now write and edit notes on papers in their collection
  • Notes are only viewable within the collection
  • Notes are viewable by anyone that the collection is shared to
  • Notes do not carry over across collections. This allows you to write a unique note for the same paper in different collections!
  • Notes are editable for those with Editor permissions in a collection
    • Otherwise they will be read-only

💡 Improvements

• Collections: Users were encountering issues with collections not loading correctly
  • We've identified the issue and patched it in the new version
• Enterprise: Enterprise users who are members in their organization will no longer see the Dashboard icon on the side navbar
  • This is to reduce confusion; only an administrator/organization owner can view the Dashboard
• Register: Page has been optimized for better load times when cached
  • Users may still encounter slower load times on cold starts (this will be monitored and improved in the future)

Shared Collections, import/export Feeds, and more improvements

Take advantage of the power of collaboration with this week's update to Collections and Feeds! This week's update also features several patches and updates for an even smoother, bug-free experience.

✨ New

• Collections: Enterprise users can now share collections with other users within their organization on SciLynk!
  • Permissions control has been implemented to allow for setting users as editors or viewers.
• Feeds: Added import/export controls to allow for the easy sharing and creation of feeds
  • Export a feed by generating a SciLynk feed code
  • Other SciLynk users can copy this code and import it to easily create the same feed.

💡 Improvements

• Search: Performance has been optimized and search metadata has been added
  • Number of results and response time is now displayed at the top of searches
  • Display/loading states have been improved
  • Funder entity has been added to the search results and search bar
• Papers: Panel for saving papers has been improved to be more clear and consistent
• Authors: More data is now being displayed about an author
  • These include h-index, i-10 index, and last time the data was updated.
• Entity Page Caching Issue: Users were encountering issues with papers on two pages of the same entity type not updating
  • We've identified the issue and patched it in the new version
• Publications/Citations Graph: Improved legends/axis readability and wording consistency

Major revamps, new Enterprise features, and what's up next

Happy Independence Day! A lot of major changes to talk about for SciLynk. Some highlights include the revamped Feeds, Collections, and the addition of new Enterprise features! We'll also be talking about what's coming up next at the bottom of this post 👀!

✨ New

Enterprise users can now create an Organization on SciLynk!

• Organization dashboard for administrators is now in beta
  • We're open to feedback! If you encounter a bug or have features you'd like to see, let us know!
• Features include:
  • Overview with basic analytics, recently viewed papers from organization
  • Users overview with ability to invite, edit, and remove users from your organization
  • Settings with option to rename organization, more to come soon!

💡 Improvements

• Feeds: Updated feed controls to be more compact and creation flow
  • Added the ability to edit your feed name and keywords
• Collections: Updated controls and creation flow
• Incorrect Password Bug: Several users encountered incorrect password errors while logging in
  • We've identified the issue, alerted the affected users, and patched it in the new version
• Lynx Caching Issue: Users were encountering issues with Lynx not updating when a new query was entered
  • We've identified the issue and patched it in the new version
• AWS SDK: Updated to latest version
• Navigation: Updated to reflect the removal of Notes, minor visual changes for better consistency
• Filter Widget: Rephrased for clearer wording
• Global Layout: Minor changes to styling, color palette consistency, and padding
• Login/Register Page: Minor changes to layout
• Blog/Changelog: Changed image formats to .webp for better performance

🗑️ Removed

• Notes: After some careful consideration, we've decided to remove the notes feature entirely from SciLynk

⏳ Upcoming

• More Enterprise features
• Dedicated roadmap page for better readibility + more transparency
• Improvements to Feeds

New landing, new looks, and more

We want to make sure our users can identify with our team and platform more. With our new landing page tree, you will be able to see more comprehensive details about the platform itself and insights into our teams' updates!

✨ New

• About Page: Get to know our mission and team better with our new about page.
• Changelog: Our team is committed to maintaining transparency about our updates to hold ourselves accountable to our users.
• Contact Us: Nothing to explain here, just an easy way to contact our team!
• Press Kit: New guidelines and assets for usage of the SciLynk brand online.
• Status: Check SciLynk's statuses on our status page for updates on issues with feeds, data, Lynx, etc.

💡 Improvements

• Landing page: Our landing page is revamped to match the rest of the site's aesthetic. Enjoy a more comprehensive and futuristic outlook on SciLynk's facets.

🗑️ Removed

• Landing Demo: The landing page demo for searching for papers has been removed.

🎉 Public Beta

We're happy to announce SciLynk is in public beta! You can now register without an invite here! If you encounter any bugs or issues, don't hesitate to let the team know at support@scilynk.com :)

✨ New

• Keyword-based feeds: Feeds now use custom keywords instead of choosing from a limited pool of concepts.
• Dark mode: SciLynk is now dark themed (we will be adding a toggle between light and dark if it is highly requested).
• Collection Exports: Export collections to BibTeX files to sync SciLynk collections with your favorite reference management softwares.

💡 Improvements

• Faster search entity toggling
• Improved feed specifity
• Increased range of recency for feed publications

🗑️ Removed

• Concept-based feeds: These feeds no longer are supported by SciLynk. If you need help deleting them or creating new ones, contact us.