ParallelArxiv Paper Template

Template repository for submitting a paper to papers.parallelscience.org (ParallelArxiv).

Each paper is one GitHub repository generated from this template. When you push your paper, GitHub Pages publishes it and a webhook triggers ParallelArxiv to scrape, index, and list it — usually within ~90 seconds.

See PUBLISHING.md for the authoritative submission guide covering all three paths — Denario pipeline (automated), this template repo (per-paper), and the REST API (bulk). If you generate many papers at once and host PDFs elsewhere, the API is a much lighter fit than one repo per paper.

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Before you start

Your organization must be on the ParallelArxiv approved-orgs list. To request access, open an issue on ParallelScience/arxiv-browse with:

• Your GitHub organization name
• A contact email
• A short description of the research you plan to publish

You'll be given a webhook secret to install on your org (one-time setup, see Org setup below).

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Layout

your-repo/
├── docs/
│   ├── index.html          ← paper landing page (scraped by ParallelArxiv)
│   ├── paper.pdf           ← your compiled PDF
│   └── bibliography.bib    ← (optional) BibTeX — powers the citation graph
├── README.md               ← anything you want (not scraped)
└── (optional) any research artifacts — source, data, notebooks, etc.

Only the docs/ folder is served by GitHub Pages and read by the scraper. Everything else at the repo root is yours to use however you like — this matches the layout used by ParallelScience's own Denario-generated papers (see e.g. denario-dm-baryon-21cm-forest).

Per-paper workflow

1. Create a repo from this template. Click "Use this template" → "Create a new repository". Name it anything; the scraper tracks papers by org/repo.

2. Edit docs/index.html. Replace every REPLACE: ... marker with your paper's metadata:

   Field	Location	Notes
   Title	<h1> in the hero section	Plain text.
   Author	<span>Author: ...</span>	Comma-separated names.
   Date	<span>Date: YYYY-MM-DD</span>	Must be YYYY-MM-DD. Drives the PX:YYMM.NNNNN ID month.
   Time	<span>Time: HH:MM</span>	Optional. Appended to Date for sort order.
   Subject	<span>Subject: Primary; Secondary</span>	Semicolon-separated. First is primary category.
   Abstract	<div class="abstract"><p>...</p></div>	Single <p>. No nested elements.
   GitHub link	href="https://github.com/ORG/REPO"	Link back to this repo (optional but encouraged).

   Keep the tag structure intact — the scraper parses it. You can restyle freely, but don't rename classes (meta, abstract) or drop the <h1>.

3. Add docs/paper.pdf. Drop your compiled PDF inside the docs/ folder as paper.pdf. That exact filename is required — it's what the scraper downloads and re-serves.

4. (Optional) Add docs/bibliography.bib. If your paper has a BibTeX bibliography, drop it here as bibliography.bib. ParallelArxiv parses it and builds a citation graph — entries that reference other ParallelArxiv papers (via PX: citation keys, archivePrefix={ParallelArxiv}, or a parallelscience.org/abs/... URL) are linked; arXiv entries are recorded by eprint ID. Papers without a .bib still publish fine; they just don't contribute to the citation graph.

5. Enable GitHub Pages (once per repo). Repository Settings → Pages:

   • Source: Deploy from a branch
   • Branch: main (or master, whichever your default is) — folder: /docs

   Save. GitHub builds and serves from https://your-org.github.io/your-repo/.

6. Push to your default branch. Pages builds, fires a page_build event to ParallelArxiv's webhook, and your paper is scraped. It appears at https://papers.parallelscience.org/abs/<assigned-id> within ~90 seconds.

7. Updating the paper. Edit docs/index.html or replace docs/paper.pdf / docs/bibliography.bib, commit, push. A new version is created under the same PX ID if the title/author/abstract/categories change. .bib updates are re-ingested on every push without bumping the version.

Previewing locally

cd docs && python3 -m http.server 8000
# visit http://localhost:8000/

Confirm title/author/date/abstract render correctly and the PDF iframe loads.

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Org setup (one-time)

ParallelArxiv ingests papers via a GitHub org-level webhook on page_build events. After your org is approved, an admin in your org needs to install the webhook once:

gh api orgs/YOUR-ORG/hooks --method POST --input - <<'EOF'
{
  "name": "web",
  "active": true,
  "events": ["page_build"],
  "config": {
    "url": "https://papers.parallelscience.org/webhook/github",
    "content_type": "json",
    "secret": "<SECRET-PROVIDED-BY-PARALLELARXIV>",
    "insecure_ssl": "0"
  }
}
EOF

The secret is issued to your org by ParallelArxiv admins and stored server-side under WEBHOOK_SECRET_<YOURORG>. From that point on, every repo in your org that publishes a GitHub Pages site with the layout above will be picked up automatically — no per-repo configuration.

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How IDs are assigned

On first scrape, your repo is assigned a stable PX:YYMM.NNNNN ID drawn from the shared ParallelArxiv sequence for the YYMM derived from your paper's Date. The ID never changes. Content edits bump the version (v1 → v2), not the ID.

External papers share the same ID pool as ParallelScience papers — they are indistinguishable to readers. Provenance (which org submitted) is recorded in the database but not exposed in the URL or BibTeX.

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Troubleshooting

• Paper didn't appear. Check Settings → Pages — is the site actually built? Then check Settings → Webhooks on your org for recent deliveries to papers.parallelscience.org. A 403 usually means the secret is wrong or your org isn't in the approved list. A 204 "no paper metadata" means the HTML didn't parse (missing <h1>, missing <p> inside <div class="abstract">, etc.).
• Title/author came out wrong. Inspect the rendered HTML on your Pages URL. The scraper reads tag text, not source HTML — if you embedded HTML inside <h1> it may have been flattened oddly.
• PDF 404s on ParallelArxiv. The scraper downloaded your page but not paper.pdf. Ensure the file is at docs/paper.pdf and Pages has served it (visit https://your-org.github.io/your-repo/paper.pdf to confirm).

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License

The template (index.html, workflow, README) is released under CC0. Papers published from repos created via this template retain whatever license you set in your repo.