Run a literature review, end to end.

Getting started

Open CERULEON and the Welcome to CERULEON dialog appears. You have four ways in:

• Sign in with your email and password, or request a one-time magic link by email.
• Create account — email and a password of at least 8 characters.
• Continue with Google — one-click sign-in.
• Continue without an account — guest mode; your data stays in this browser only.

There is no consent checkbox to tick — by continuing you accept CERULEON's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, shown beneath the buttons.

Interface overview

The workspace has three regions: a left sidebar, a top toolbar, and the main area showing the active view.

Sidebar

• The CERULEON wordmark returns to the Welcome screen.
• Projects opens the project catalog; below it sits your project list and the New project button.
• The workflow nav — Dashboard, Search, Screening, Table, Synthesis, Bibliography, Export, Audit trail — appears once a project is selected. (No project selected? The workflow nav is hidden and you land on Welcome.)
• The sidebar can be collapsed to icons.

Toolbar

• A mode badge (SOTA or Device-specific), the project name, and the current view label.
• On the right: the AI configuration bulb (glows while AI is working), theme settings, the notebook, and your account menu — which holds your profile, subscription, Support, and sign-in/out.

Creating a project

Click New project, give it a name, and choose a mode. The mode is set at creation and shapes the whole workflow — the table columns, the AI synthesis structure, and which regulatory fields appear.

You can switch a project's mode later from Edit project, but CERULEON asks you to confirm — the table format and AI structure change, and PICOTS/GSPR may need re-running.

Dashboard

The Dashboard is your project at a glance: the evidence pyramid (Oxford CEBM levels) and the spread of GRADE confidence across your included pool, plus pool counts. Drill into a tier to see the studies behind it.

Search

Build your pool two ways — query PubMed, or import references you already have.

PubMed query

• Enter your concepts; CERULEON expands each to (term[Title/Abstract] OR term[MeSH Terms]) and joins them with AND. The query is split into an editable semantic axis and auto-generated filter clauses.
• Pick the SOTA or Device-specific filter card for publication-type and date presets (SOTA defaults to the last 5 years), or set custom filters.
• Every search is saved to the project's query history — kept in full as part of the MDR/IVDR audit trail — with its date and result count.

Import

• Drag a file onto the drop zone, or browse for it. Supported: RIS (.ris), NBIB (.nbib, PubMed/MEDLINE export) and BibTeX (.bib). The format is detected automatically. Import is file-based.
• Tag the import with its source (Cochrane, ClinicalTrials.gov, Europe PMC, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, CINAHL, or a custom label) for the audit trail.

Records are de-duplicated by PMID across your pool; imports also check the DOI against what's already there. Load the results into Screening when you're ready.

Screening

Work through your records and decide Include, Exclude, or send to full-text review. Every manual decision is logged.

Auto Screen with AI

With AI enabled, Auto Screen with AI reads each pending abstract against your inclusion / exclusion criteria and returns a decision (include / exclude / full-text), a confidence level, and a rationale quoting the abstract — with per-criterion verdicts. You can override any AI decision; the override is timestamped.

The article editor

Open a record to edit it in the side panel:

• Study design — a free-text field.
• Evidence level — Oxford CEBM: Ia, Ib, IIa, IIb, III, IV.
• GRADE confidence — High, Moderate, Low, Very low.
• In Device-specific projects, PICOTS and GSPR sections appear here too.

GRADE Evaluation (AI) suggests a GRADE confidence and an Oxford level for the record, which you can accept or change.

Table

The Table view is your evidence table — every included article in one comparable grid, annotations and all. Columns follow the project mode: a state-of-the-art layout for SOTA projects, or PICOTS scoring with GSPR mapping for Device-specific ones. Toggle Show quotes to surface the supporting source quotes. This table is what feeds the Evidence-table export.

Synthesis

Generate a structured synthesis of your included pool with AI. The sections follow the project mode:

• SOTA — summary, discussion, limitations & gaps, conclusion.
• Device-specific — summary, discussion, safety & performance, benefit / risk, GSPR coverage, conclusion.

Edit any section inline, or regenerate a single section without touching the rest. With a pool of three or more included articles, CERULEON discovers themes before writing. With AI off, it falls back to a non-AI narrative built from your annotations.

Bibliography

A numbered bibliography of your included articles. Switch the citation style — Vancouver, APA, or Harvard — and every reference re-formats at once. The selected style carries through to the bibliography export.

Export

Export reflects your current screening pool. Each deliverable is its own card with its own formats:

The full report bundles cover, introduction, PRISMA, evidence levels, exclusion criteria, search keywords, evidence table, excluded articles, discussion and bibliography — designed to annex into your Clinical Evaluation Report.

Audit trail

Every meaningful action — search runs, screening decisions and overrides, AI runs, and exports — is recorded with a timestamp. The audit trail gives you the regulatory traceability (MDR / IVDR) behind your deliverables, so a reviewer can reconstruct exactly how the review was built.

Settings

The Settings dialog holds a single preference: Theme — Light, Dark, or Auto (Auto follows your operating system).

AI is configured separately, from the AI configuration bulb in the toolbar:

• AI features — a master on/off switch. With it on, CERULEON uses AI for screening, extraction, GRADE and synthesis; turn it off to work entirely by hand or to hold quota.
• Model for deep tasks — choose Balanced Mode or Heavy Mode on Pro+ and Pro Max plans. Quick passes (auto-screening, GRADE) always run in Balanced Mode for speed; the model choice applies to synthesis and full-text analysis.
• Your plan and monthly AI usage are shown here too.

Tips & best practices

• Name and re-run your searches. The full query history is your audit trail — keep it meaningful.
• Use Device-specific mode for a clinical evaluation. It unlocks PICOTS and GSPR mapping you'll need for the CER annex.
• Always read the AI rationale. Auto-screening quotes the abstract for every decision — verify it in seconds, and override anything you don't trust.
• Classify as you screen. Set Study design, Evidence level and GRADE in the article panel so the Dashboard pyramid and exports stay accurate.
• Sign in to protect your work. Guest data stays in one browser; signing in syncs projects, articles, annotations and PDFs.
• Export early, export often. Deliverables always reflect the current pool — regenerate after each screening pass.

FAQ