Olto Discovery Documentation

Olto Discovery is a research platform for AI-generated protocols, hand-built workflows, simulation, and shared lab management. This guide covers how to get from a research goal to a protocol you can run.

Account Setup

Create a free Explorer account at oltodiscovery.com. No credit card required. Confirm your email address to activate your account. You can add your institution, role, and research fields in Settings → Profile. This helps the AI assistant personalize its recommendations.

The Platform at a Glance

The dashboard is organized through the top navigation bar. The major areas are:

• Generate: turn a research goal into a complete protocol with AI.
• Designer: build or edit a typed, drag-and-drop step graph by hand.
• Library: every protocol you own or that your team has shared, with versions and fork lineage.
• Run: guided, timed test sessions with findings, evidence, and a session-report PDF.
• Lab: Notebook, Inventory, Reagents, Projects, Literature, Tools, Lab Spaces, and LIMS.
• Utilities: Image & Gel Analysis, the Standards Library & Finder, and the deterministic calculators.
• Community: the public library, activity feed, reputation leaderboard, and bounties.
• Assistant: a persistent AI research assistant with conversation history.

Your First Protocol

1. Open Generate from the top navigation.
2. Enter your research goal in plain language, and be as specific as possible. Include the target, model system, technique, and primary endpoint.
3. Select your scientific field and experiment type.
4. Check the equipment available in your lab.
5. Set your budget range and timeframe.
6. Click Generate Protocol. Olto returns a complete, research-grade experimental design (prose sections plus an editable step graph) in roughly 12–30 seconds.
7. Click Open in Designer to fine-tune the steps, or Run test to walk through it in the lab.

Explorer Plan Limits

Every plan (including the free Explorer tier) includes a monthly allotment of AI calls. Explorer accounts get 5 AI calls per month and can keep up to 5 saved protocols with 100 MB of storage. An AI call is consumed by any AI request, including protocol generation, refine, simulate, risk score, an assistant message, AI Improve, image QC commentary, the standards finder, a file summary, or a paper analysis. Browsing, editing, and running existing protocols never consumes a call.

Upgrade to Researcher ($79/month) for unlimited protocols, 10 GB of storage, 200 AI calls per month, the AI assistant, inventory and reagents, literature intelligence, custom tools, and real-time collaboration. Lab ($499/month) raises the allowance to 2,000 AI calls per month, adds 100 GB of storage, teams of up to 10 seats, lab spaces, and the full LIMS test-ordering platform. Enterprise is unlimited. AI allowances reset on the first of each calendar month.

The AI Protocol Generator converts a natural-language research goal into a complete, structured experimental protocol. It is powered by Olto AI with field-specific scientific training and is available on every plan, metered against your monthly AI-call allowance.

Generation returns two synchronized artifacts: the rich prose sections (objective, hypothesis, design, materials, procedure, and so on) and an editable, drag-and-drop step graph derived deterministically from the procedure. Open the step graph in the Step Designer to reorder, branch, and refine it, or send the protocol straight to a guided test run.

Every protocol can be edited after generation. From a protocol page, click Edit in the toolbar (or Edit in Designer) to modify the title, refine any section, add or remove materials and procedure steps, change the variables, or update safety notes. Edits are versioned and recorded in your security activity log. Editing an existing protocol does not consume an AI call. Only new AI generation, refinement, or AI Improve does.

Input Parameters

Protocol Sections

Every generated protocol includes ten structured sections:

1. Objective: a precise statement of what the experiment will determine or measure.
2. Hypothesis: a falsifiable prediction with direction and expected magnitude.
3. Experimental Design: arms, n values, randomization, blinding, and primary endpoints.
4. Materials & Reagents: specific reagents, cell lines, and consumables with catalogue numbers where applicable.
5. Procedure: step-by-step protocol with concentrations, temperatures, and durations.
6. Variables: independent, dependent, and controlled variables tabulated.
7. Control Groups: positive controls, negative controls, housekeeping controls, and vehicle controls.
8. Expected Results: predicted outcomes with statistical thresholds.
9. Quality & Reproducibility: QC metrics, acceptance criteria, and statistical analysis plan.
10. Safety & Risk Notes: hazard classification, PPE requirements, waste disposal, and institutional approvals.

Quality Score

Every protocol receives four scores from 0–100:

• Feasibility: likelihood of execution given budget, equipment, and timeframe constraints.
• Controls: adequacy of experimental controls to support valid conclusions.
• Reproducibility: specificity of procedural detail to enable replication.
• Clarity: completeness and precision of instructions.

Protocol Refinements

Use the refinement buttons to iteratively improve any protocol without re-entering your parameters:

• Reduce cost: substitutes expensive reagents and optimizes quantities.
• Compress timeline: parallelizes steps and reduces incubation times where scientifically valid.
• Stronger controls: adds negative, positive, isotype, and internal controls.
• Improve reproducibility: adds QC checkpoints, tightens acceptance criteria, and specifies instrument settings.
• Add statistical plan: includes power analysis, sample size calculations, and recommended statistical tests.
• Add troubleshooting: documents 8–10 common failure modes with corrective actions.
• Simplify for uni lab: adapts to equipment available in a standard academic setting.

The Step Designer is the canonical editor for a protocol's executable workflow. It represents a protocol as a typed step graph: an ordered set of cards you can drag to reorder, branch with decisions, annotate with reagents and equipment, and validate in real time. Both AI generation and the manual designer write to the same graph, so anything generated by AI can be edited by hand and vice versa.

Opening the Designer

• From scratch: open Designer in the top navigation and start adding steps.
• From a generated protocol: click Open in Designer on the generate page, or Edit in Designer from a protocol's detail view. The canvas hydrates with the existing steps via ?protocol=<id>.

Step Types

Each card carries a type that defines its role in the workflow and which fields it exposes:

Per-Step Detail

Expand any card to edit its full detail: title and instructions, a numeric duration with unit, a temperature in degrees Celsius, an expected output, the reagents consumed (with amounts), the equipment required, free-form notes, and a critical flag for steps where an error would invalidate the experiment.

Decision Branches & Go-To Targets

A Decision step holds one or more labeled branches, and each branch points to the step the run should jump to when that outcome occurs. When you drag steps to reorder, duplicate a step, or delete one, the designer automatically re-indexes every go-to-step target so branches keep pointing at the right place. Live validation flags dangling targets, empty required fields, and unreachable steps before you save.

AI Improve

Click AI Improve to send the current graph to Olto AI and receive a revised, validated step graph: tighter instructions, added controls or QC checkpoints, and clearer decision logic. The result is normalized back into the same typed structure so you can review and accept the changes. AI Improve is a metered AI call (Researcher and above).

Saving

Saving persists the graph atomically: the entire step set is replaced in one transaction, and the protocol's prose sections are kept in sync for PDF export, the library, and scoring. New protocols are created from the designer; existing ones are updated in place, subject to ownership or team-edit permissions.

The Manual Protocol Designer is the metadata-and-overview side of the Step Designer. It lets you set a protocol's title, field, objective, and hypothesis, and add or edit steps from scratch with full control over every parameter. It complements AI generation for protocols that require proprietary methods, established SOPs, or highly customized workflows.

Accessing the Designer

Open Designer in the top navigation. You can start a new protocol or load an existing one with ?protocol=<id>. The page combines protocol metadata, the drag-and-drop step canvas, and one-click access to a simulation and a test run.

Protocol Metadata

Before adding steps, fill in the Protocol Overview at the top of the Design tab:

• Protocol title: a descriptive name for your protocol (editable in the toolbar).
• Scientific field: select from the field dropdown in the toolbar.
• Objective: what does this protocol aim to demonstrate?
• Hypothesis: what do you predict will happen, and why?

Step Types

Each step has a type that defines its role in the workflow:

Step Fields

Click any step to expand its edit panel. Available fields per step:

• Title (required): a brief, action-oriented name. e.g. "Wash cells with PBS × 3"
• Detailed Instructions: full procedural text including volumes, concentrations, and technique notes.
• Duration: a numeric value with unit (seconds, minutes, hours, days). Used for timeline estimation and simulation.
• Temperature: in degrees Celsius. Leave blank if ambient.
• Expected Output: what should be visually or measurably observable after this step? e.g. "Cell pellet visible" or "OD600 = 0.6–0.8".
• Equipment: select all instruments required for this step.
• Decision Branches (Decision Gate steps only): add labeled branches for each possible outcome and the corresponding next action.
• Step Notes: tips, warnings, or context that do not belong in the procedure text.
• Critical Step: toggle to flag steps where an error would invalidate the entire experiment. Critical steps are highlighted in red and emphasized during test runs.

Reordering Steps

Use the up/down arrow buttons on each step card to reorder. Steps are automatically re-indexed. You can also delete any step using the trash icon. You will not be prompted to confirm unless the step has significant detail filled in.

Saving to Library

Click Save to Library in the toolbar. Your protocol is saved with:

• All steps persisted to the database with full detail
• Auto-calculated quality scores based on step completeness, critical step count, and metadata richness
• Tagged as "manual-design" in your library for filtering

The simulation engine uses AI to analyze your protocol design before you run it in the lab. It identifies risks, estimates resource requirements, and provides optimization suggestions at the step level.

Running a Simulation

1. Open any protocol in the Manual Designer or click Simulate from the toolbar.
2. Click Run Simulation in the Simulation tab. Analysis typically takes 10–20 seconds.
3. Review the results across four output areas.

Simulation Outputs

Duration Estimate: total protocol time calculated from step durations plus standard overhead (setup, cleanup, prep). Given in hours.

Cost Estimate: a rough reagent and consumable cost estimate based on step count, equipment, and field complexity.

Risk Flags: specific issues identified at the protocol level, rated by severity:

• High: issues likely to invalidate results or cause safety incidents. Must be resolved before running.
• Medium: issues that may compromise data quality. Strongly recommended to address.
• Low: minor gaps or opportunities for optimization.

Step-by-Step Analysis: for each step, the AI identifies specific issues (missing controls, temperature inconsistencies, ambiguous output criteria) and provides targeted improvement suggestions.

AI Recommendations: a 2–3 paragraph expert assessment of overall protocol feasibility, methodology rigor, and specific improvements to maximize success rate.

Simulation History

All simulation runs are saved and associated with the protocol. This allows you to track how protocol quality evolves across refinement iterations. Previous simulation results are accessible from the protocol detail page.

Active Testing turns a protocol into a guided, timed lab session. Instead of reading a static document, you step through the protocol one card at a time, run a countdown timer for each step, mark outcomes, capture notes, and log structured findings with evidence, producing a complete, exportable experiment record. Test runs are available on every plan and consume no AI calls.

Starting a Run

1. Open any protocol and click Run test in the toolbar.
2. A new test run is created and its steps are derived from the protocol's step graph (or its procedure, if it has no graph yet).
3. The runner opens on the first step. Work through the steps in sequence.

The Step View

For each step the runner shows the instructions, expected output, reagents, equipment, temperature, and any critical-step warning. You record an outcome and move on:

• Pass: the step completed with the expected output observed.
• Fail: the step did not meet its criteria.
• Deviation: the step was completed, but not as written; capture what changed in the notes.

A progress indicator tracks how far through the protocol you are, and critical steps are emphasized so a failure there prompts you to pause and investigate before continuing.

Per-Step Timers

Every step exposes a countdown timer pre-filled from the step's duration. The timer plays an audible alarm (via the Web Audio API) when it elapses, and it persists locally so it survives a page reload or an accidental navigation. You can leave the bench and come back without losing the count. An elapsed-vs-expected bar compares your real time on each step against its planned duration so you can spot a run that is drifting off schedule.

Step Tools Panel

Each step has an attached tools panel (keyed per step, so it resets as you navigate) with three bench utilities:

• Timer: the resumable countdown described above, with alarm.
• Unit converter: quick conversions across volume, mass, concentration, temperature, and time.
• Calculator: a safe expression evaluator for on-the-fly dilutions and arithmetic.

Notes

Add free-text notes to any step as you go. Notes are auto-saved as you type; the runner flushes any pending note save before you finish a run so nothing is lost on the last step.

Findings & Evidence

From the run's tools dock you can log a structured finding (an observation, result, or conclusion tied to this run and protocol) and attach evidence such as images, data files, or scans. Evidence uses the same secure upload pipeline as the Files area, stored in a private, access-controlled bucket. Findings and their evidence become part of the permanent experiment record and can be reviewed later from the protocol.

Session Report PDF

When the run is complete, download a session-report PDF that captures the protocol, every step outcome and timestamp, your notes, elapsed times, and the findings you logged. The report is generated server-side with proper page breaks and word wrapping, suitable for attaching to a lab notebook or a compliance record.

The AI Scientific Assistant is a persistent research intelligence with a full conversation history that carries across sessions. It is available on Researcher and above (and to members of a paid team through inherited access), and each message is metered as an AI call.

What the Assistant Knows

The assistant has access to your full conversation history within each thread. It is aware of your scientific field, role, and institution from your profile, and it personalizes its recommendations accordingly. Conversations are stored privately to your account and protected by row-level security.

Capabilities

• Interpret experimental results and suggest next steps
• Recommend statistically appropriate analysis methods for your data
• Critique experimental design and identify confounds
• Explain scientific concepts at any depth level
• Summarize literature and identify research gaps
• Compare methodologies across your protocol history
• Generate draft materials and methods sections
• Troubleshoot failed experiments

Conversation Management

Each conversation is stored separately and listed in the assistant. Create a new conversation for each distinct research question or project. Keeping threads focused improves response quality. Use descriptive titles for easy retrieval.

Usage & Limits

Every assistant message counts as one AI call against your monthly allowance: 200/month on Researcher, 2,000/month on Lab, and unlimited on Enterprise. A secondary monthly spend cap also applies, and short-window rate limiting protects against bursts. Your remaining balance is shown in Billing and Settings → Security, and the allowance resets on the first of each calendar month. The AI Pro model powers the assistant on Researcher and Lab; Enterprise uses AI Max.

The Research Notebook is a persistent, organized space for all lab observations, results, hypotheses, and protocol logs. All entries are timestamped, tagged, and associated with specific notebooks.

Notebooks

Create separate notebooks for each project, experiment series, or research area. Notebooks can be shared within your team (Lab plan) or kept private. Click New notebook in the sidebar of the Notebook page.

Entry Types

Inventory and Reagents give your lab a single source of truth for what you have on hand, how much of it is left, and where it came from. Both are available on Researcher and above (and to paid-team members through inherited access).

Inventory Items & the Transaction Ledger

Track every consumable, antibody, kit, cell line, and piece of stock as an inventory item with quantity, units, location, supplier, catalog number, and a low-stock threshold. Quantity changes are never silent edits. Each one is recorded as a transaction in an append-only ledger:

The ledger gives you a complete, auditable history of every stock movement, so you can answer "who used the last of this and when?" and trace consumption back to specific experiments.

Reagents Catalog

The Reagents catalog is a structured library of the reagents your lab works with: names, concentrations, storage conditions, hazards, lot numbers, and supplier details. Reagents authored here can be referenced from protocol steps in the designer, so a step's materials stay consistent with what your lab actually stocks.

The Literature area is a personal reference manager with AI on top. Build a library of papers, then have Olto read and reason over them. Available on Researcher and above.

Adding Papers

• DOI lookup: paste a DOI and Olto resolves the full citation, first via CrossRef and then PubMed as a fallback, populating title, authors, journal, year, and abstract automatically.
• PDF upload: drop a PDF into your library; the file is stored securely and indexed alongside its metadata.
• Manual entry: add a reference by hand when you only have partial information.

PDF → Protocol Import

Turn a methods paper into a working protocol: import a PDF and Olto extracts the experimental procedure into a structured Olto protocol: sections and a step graph you can then refine in the designer. This is an AI-powered step and counts as an AI call.

Per-Paper AI Analysis

Run an AI analysis on any paper in your library to get a structured summary: key findings, methods, limitations, and how the paper relates to your own work. Each analysis is a metered AI call.

Image & Gel Analysis is a deterministic, client-side computer-vision toolkit for quantifying gels, blots, and microscopy images. The measurements run entirely in your browser (no image data leaves your machine to produce the numbers), and the engine is covered by its own unit-test suite. It is available on every plan.

Lane Densitometry

For gels and Western blots, define lanes over your image and Olto computes the integrated optical density (IOD) per lane, along with peak and area metrics. This gives you reproducible, quantitative band intensities for comparing expression across conditions.

Cell Counting

For microscopy images, the cell counter segments objects using Otsu thresholding followed by a distance-transform watershed to separate touching cells, then reports counts and per-object statistics. Because the pipeline is deterministic, the same image always yields the same count.

AI Vision for QC Only

You can optionally ask Olto AI to review an analysis and provide qualitative QC commentary, flagging uneven loading, saturation, focus problems, or lane-detection issues. The AI never produces or alters the numbers; densitometry and counts are always computed by the deterministic engine. AI QC commentary is a metered AI call.

Exporting Results

Export your measurements to CSV for downstream statistics, or send them directly into your Research Notebook as a result entry tied to the analysis.

The Standards Library is a seeded, searchable catalog of laboratory and compliance standards (methods, safety classifications, and regulatory references) that you can browse, filter, and link to your work. The catalog is available on every plan.

Browsing the Catalog

Search by code or keyword and open any standard to read its detail. The full catalog is returned by default (it is not truncated), so list views reflect the complete library.

Standards Finder

The Standards Finder maps an experiment to the compliance standards that apply to it. Describe an experiment (or upload a protocol PDF) and Olto suggests the relevant standards from the catalog so you can check that your design meets the right methodological and safety requirements. The mapping step is AI-assisted and counts as an AI call; browsing the catalog itself does not.

The Utilities area collects four everyday bench calculators. They are deterministic and fully client-side (no AI, no AI-call cost, and no server round-trip), so they are fast and available on every plan.

Sample Size Calculator

Estimate the number of replicates you need to detect an effect for common designs, given your effect size, variability, significance level, and desired power. Use it to justify n in your experimental design before you commit reagents.

Unit Converter

Convert across the units you use at the bench (volume, mass, concentration in molar and mass/volume, temperature, and time) with the same conversion engine that powers the in-run step tools.

Citations

Format references into common citation styles for your methods and manuscripts, generated locally from the reference details you provide.

Recipe Builder

Build buffers and media from target concentrations and a final volume; the builder back-calculates the amount of each component to weigh out or pipette, so you can scale a recipe up or down without arithmetic errors.

The Protocol Library stores all generated and manually designed protocols. Every protocol is versioned and preserved indefinitely.

Filtering & Search

Filter your library by scientific field using the tag pills at the top of the Library page. Filter to Starred protocols using the star filter. URL-based filtering means filters are shareable and bookmark-able.

Quality Scores in Library View

Each protocol card shows the overall quality score (average of four sub-scores) with a color-coded bar. Protocols scoring 85+ are shown in green, 70–84 in purple, 55–69 in amber, and below 55 in red.

Versioning & Fork Lineage

Every refinement creates a new version, and the current version number is shown in the protocol detail view, with before/after snapshots recorded for each change. Protocols can also be forked (copied into your own library as a new starting point), and Olto preserves the fork lineage so you can trace a protocol back to the public original it descended from.

Team Sharing

On the Lab plan and above, protocols shared with your team appear in a dedicated "Shared with my team" section of the library and the overview, governed by row-level security so only members of the owning organization can see them. See Teams & Collaboration.

Starring

Star important protocols for quick access. Starred protocols appear at the top of filtered views and in your dashboard. Click the star icon from any protocol card or detail view.

Team features are available on the Lab plan ($499/month) and Enterprise. Teams are organized into Organizations, and each organization has its own member list, permissions, and shared workspace.

Creating an Organization

1. Navigate to Team in the sidebar.
2. Click Create team.
3. Enter a team name and optional description.
4. You are automatically added as the team Owner.

Member Roles

Inviting Members

Click Invite member on any team card and enter the email address. An invitation link is sent valid for 7 days. The invitee must have or create an Olto account to accept.

Real-Time Collaboration

Open protocols support live collaboration: presence indicators show who else is viewing, live cursors and an active-section indicator show where they are working, and comments, versions, and approvals live in the collaboration drawer. Real-time collaboration is available on Researcher and above; team co-editing and team sharing are Lab features.

Team Co-Editing

On the Lab plan, an owner or admin can opt a protocol or project into team editing, allowing accepted owners, admins, and members of the organization to edit it directly. Ownership, sharing settings, and approval status remain locked to the owner. Versions are bumped collaboratively so the whole team works from the latest revision.

Inherited Plan Access

Members of a paid team inherit the team's plan: a member's effective tier is the higher of their own plan and the team owner's plan. This gives every seat access to AI and paid features. AI metering remains per user at the inherited tier (it is not a shared pool), and the seat cap is enforced when invitations are sent.

Protocol Approval Workflow

On Lab and Enterprise plans, protocols can be submitted for approval before they are marked as active. The approval status field tracks: Draft → Pending Review → Approved or Rejected. This supports institutional oversight requirements and good laboratory practice.

A Lab Space is an organization-level shared hub for a physical or virtual lab. It gives your team a common home for shared resources and a booking calendar for equipment and rooms. Lab Spaces are a Lab-plan feature, scoped to your organization.

Shared Resources

Curate the resources your lab shares (instruments, equipment, rooms, and reference materials) in one place, visible to every member of the organization. Members reach the space from the Lab area of the top navigation.

Booking Calendar

Reserve shared equipment and rooms on a booking calendar so the whole team can see availability and avoid double-booking the flow cytometer or the confocal. Bookings are scoped to the organization and visible to all members.

The Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) is Olto's test-ordering and results platform, the flagship feature of the Lab plan. It connects two sides of a testing relationship: a requester who needs assays run, and a provider lab that runs them, enters results, and releases a Certificate of Analysis. Both sides live in the app, with notifications, invoicing, real-time updates, and analytics built in.

The Two Sides

• Test Hub: the requester's workspace. Browse provider catalogs, create and submit orders, register samples, track status, read released results, and pay invoices.
• Lab Console: the provider's workspace. Receive incoming orders, register and store samples, run assays, enter and verify results, release Certificates of Analysis, issue invoices, and manage staff.

Setting Up as a Provider

To run tests for others, register a provider lab and build its assay catalog. Each catalog assay defines the test, its method, turnaround, price, sample requirements, and the reference ranges used to flag results. Providers can list accreditations (CLIA, CAP, ISO 17025, ISO 15189, GLP, GMP, FDA-registered). A seeded demo reference lab with example assays is available to explore the workflow.

Creating & Submitting an Order

1. From the Test Hub, choose a provider and add one or more assays from its catalog to a new order.
2. Add order-level detail: project, priority, and instructions.
3. Save as a draft, then submit the order to the provider. The provider can accept or reject it.

Order Status Lifecycle

An order moves through a defined status machine, with each transition recorded and surfaced to both sides:

Sample Registration & Chain of Custody

Samples are registered against an order and tracked through their own lifecycle: registered, in transit, received, in storage, in analysis, exhausted, disposed, or rejected. Every handling event is appended to an immutable chain-of-custody log (collected, shipped, received, stored, aliquoted, analyzed, transferred, disposed, rejected, or comment), giving you a complete, auditable history of who handled each sample and when.

Entering Results & Reference-Range Auto-Flagging

Technicians enter a numeric or qualitative result for each assay. Olto compares the value against the assay's reference range and auto-flags it:

A result progresses through preliminary → final, and items track pending → in progress → resulted → verified.

Verify, Amend & Electronic Signatures

A reviewer verifies results before release, applying a 21 CFR Part 11-style electronic signature that captures who signed and when. If a result must change after the fact, it is amended rather than overwritten. The amendment is recorded with its own signature and the result is marked amended, preserving the original for the audit trail.

Certificate of Analysis (CoA)

Once results are verified, the provider releases a Certificate of Analysis: a formal PDF listing the order, each assay, its result and flag, the reference range, and the signing reviewer. The requester is notified and can download the CoA from the Test Hub.

Invoicing

Providers can generate an invoice for an order, priced from the catalog. Invoices move through draft → issued → paid (or void) and can be downloaded as a PDF. An invoice card and an activity timeline appear in the order workspace so both sides see billing status at a glance.

Notifications & Real-Time Updates

A notification bell delivers in-app alerts on the events that matter: submission, acceptance, status changes, new messages, result release, and critical results. Order workspaces update in real time, so a result entered on the Lab Console appears in the requester's Test Hub without a refresh.

Messaging

Each order has a threaded message channel so requester and provider can ask questions, clarify requirements, and document decisions in context.

Analytics & Export

The LIMS analytics dashboard summarizes throughput, turnaround, and result distributions with SVG charts computed by a pure, unit-tested analytics module. Order and result data can be exported to CSV for external reporting.

Provider Staff Roles

A provider lab can add staff by email and assign each a role:

The Community area connects the Olto userbase around shared, public protocols and lab activity. It is available on every plan.

Public Library & Fork Lineage

Publish a protocol to the public library so other researchers can discover, read, and fork it into their own workspace. Olto preserves the fork lineage, so a protocol always traces back to the original it descended from, giving credit and making provenance clear.

Activity Feed

The activity feed surfaces recent community activity (new public protocols, forks, and notable events) so you can follow what the community is building.

Stars & Following

Star protocols you want to keep or signal as useful, and follow researchers whose work you want to track. Stars contribute to a protocol's visibility and its author's reputation.

Reputation & Leaderboard

Contributions earn reputation, and a leaderboard recognizes the community's most active and well-regarded contributors based on shared protocols, forks, and stars.

Bounties

Post a bounty to crowdsource a protocol or a specific experimental design, funded through an escrow-style hold and paid out to the contributor whose work you accept. Bounties give the community a structured way to collaborate on hard problems.

Olto Discovery has four plans. AI is metered on every plan (including the free Explorer tier) rather than locked behind a paywall, and AI allowances reset on the first of each calendar month.

Feature Access by Tier

Feature gating follows three bands:

• Free on every plan (incl. Explorer): the manual and drag-and-drop Designer, the Library with versioning and fork lineage, Projects, PDF export, Active Testing with Findings and Evidence, the Notebook, Files (without AI summaries), the Standards Library and Finder catalog, all Utilities, Image & Gel Analysis, Search, Statistics, and the Community. Every plan also includes a monthly AI-call allowance (5 on Explorer).
• Researcher and above: all AI features (metered), Inventory and its ledger, Reagents, Literature and Papers, Custom Tools, and real-time collaboration (presence, cursors, comments, sharing).
• Lab and above: Teams with co-editing and team sharing, Lab Spaces with booking, and the full LIMS (Test Hub and Lab Console).
• Enterprise: everything unlimited, the AI Max model, SSO/SAML, private-cloud deployment, and a HIPAA-ready Business Associate Agreement under a separate written agreement.

Members of a paid team inherit the team's plan, so a Lab team gives every seat access to paid features. See Teams & Collaboration.

What Counts as an AI Call

An AI call is consumed by any AI request: protocol generation, refine, simulate, risk score, an assistant message, AI Improve / design assist, image QC commentary, the standards finder, a file summary, and paper analysis or import. Protocol generation counts, and there is no bypass. Viewing, editing, and running existing protocols never counts. A secondary monthly spend cap applies in addition to the call count, and both reset on the first of each month.

Upgrading

Go to Billing in the sidebar. Select your desired plan and click to proceed to the Stripe checkout. Changes take effect immediately upon payment confirmation.

Cancellation

Cancel anytime from Billing → Manage subscription. Your plan remains active until the end of the current billing period. No data is deleted upon cancellation. Your library remains accessible on the Explorer free tier.

Academic Discounts

Verified academic institutions get academic pricing on Researcher and Lab plans. Email academic@oltodiscovery.com from your institutional email address.

Research IP, protocol designs, and experimental data are protected by several independent layers: encryption in transit and at rest, database row-level security, audit logging, and authentication controls. Each is described below.

Encryption

• At rest: all data encrypted with AES-256 via Supabase's managed PostgreSQL infrastructure.
• In transit: all API traffic encrypted with TLS 1.3. HSTS enforced on all endpoints.

Data Isolation

Every database row is protected by PostgreSQL Row-Level Security (RLS) policies. Users can only read and write data they own. Organization members can access shared resources only within their organization scope. These policies are enforced at the database level. They cannot be bypassed through the application layer.

Audit Logging

Every significant action is logged to the audit_logs table with: user ID, action type, resource identifier, IP address, user agent, and timestamp. Logs are immutable (no update/delete policies). Lab and Enterprise plan administrators can view audit logs from the Team settings page.

Authentication

Passwords are hashed using bcrypt via Supabase Auth. Two-factor authentication (TOTP) is available now — turn it on in Settings → Security with any authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, and others), then save your one-time backup recovery codes somewhere safe in case you lose your device. Keep Security Alert Emails on as well to catch unrecognized sign-ins. SSO/SAML integration is available on Enterprise plans for institutional identity providers.

SOC 2 & HIPAA posture

Olto Discovery is built on security-conscious infrastructure providers and designed with SOC 2-aligned controls in mind. Olto Discovery itself has not completed a SOC 2 audit unless expressly stated. We rely on infrastructure providers with established security programs, including SOC 2-compliant providers where available.

Olto Discovery is not, by default, a HIPAA-covered platform and does not provide a Business Associate Agreement on standard plans. HIPAA-ready configurations may be available for Enterprise customers under a separate written agreement, where supported by the full vendor and infrastructure stack. Until that agreement is in place, do not upload protected health information (PHI), patient-identifiable clinical data, classified information, export-controlled data, controlled unclassified information (CUI), or other regulated sensitive data.

For Enterprise compliance discussions, contact enterprise@oltodiscovery.com. To report a security concern or vulnerability, contact security@oltodiscovery.com.

Data Residency

By default, data is stored in US-West-2 (Oregon). EU data residency and private cloud deployment are available on Enterprise plans.

Responsible Disclosure

If you discover a security vulnerability, please report it to security@oltodiscovery.com. We respond to all reports within 48 hours and maintain a responsible disclosure policy.

Olto Discovery uses third-party AI inference providers to power protocol generation, literature analysis, statistical guidance, and the AI assistant.

Required human review

All AI-generated content requires review by a qualified researcher before implementation. Verify reagent quantities, confirm statistical methods, check safety requirements, and obtain institutional approvals (IRB, IBC, IACUC, DEA) before conducting research.

Model selection by tier

Olto selects the model automatically based on your plan and the task:

• Olto AI: the Explorer (free) tier
• AI Pro: the Researcher and Lab tiers
• AI Max: the Enterprise tier

Monthly AI call limits

An "AI call" is any AI request: protocol generation, refine, simulate, risk score, an assistant message, AI Improve / design assist, image QC commentary, the standards finder, a file summary, or paper analysis / import. Protocol generation counts as a call on every tier; there is no bypass. Viewing, editing, and running existing protocols never counts.

• Explorer (free): 5 AI calls/month
• Researcher ($79/mo): 200 AI calls/month + unlimited protocols
• Lab ($499/mo): 2,000 AI calls/month + unlimited protocols
• Enterprise: unlimited AI calls and protocols

A secondary monthly spend cap also applies. When you reach a limit, AI features pause until the next billing cycle or until you upgrade. Non-AI features keep working. Your current usage is always visible in Billing and in Settings → Security. Limits reset on the first of each calendar month. Members of a paid team are metered per user at the team's inherited tier (not a shared pool).

Limitations

• AI reflects its training data, not real-time literature
• Feasibility scores are AI estimates, not peer-reviewed assessments
• Always verify reagent catalog numbers with the supplier directly

Regulated and sensitive data

Unless expressly permitted in a signed Enterprise agreement with appropriate configuration, do not upload protected health information (PHI), patient-identifiable clinical data, classified information, export-controlled data, controlled unclassified information (CUI), or other regulated sensitive data. Olto Discovery is not, by default, a HIPAA-covered platform.

AI provider data handling

When you use AI features, your prompts, uploaded files, protocols, and assistant conversations are sent to our AI inference partner to produce the response. We do not sell user data, and we do not use private customer research content to train Olto-owned or public AI models. Our AI inference partner's handling of API content is governed by their applicable API terms at the time of the request. AI inference metadata is retained in line with our AI provider's API terms and our security needs.

Not a medical device

Olto Discovery is not a medical device, diagnostic tool, clinical decision-support system, or substitute for qualified scientific judgment. Users are responsible for IRB, IBC, IACUC, biosafety, chemical safety, DEA/controlled-substance compliance, export-control compliance, and other applicable legal and institutional requirements where relevant.

The Olto Discovery REST API is available for programmatic access to protocol generation, library management, and team resources. API access requires authentication via Supabase JWT tokens obtained through the standard auth flow.

Base URL

https://www.oltodiscovery.com/api

Authentication

Include the Supabase session token in the Authorization header:

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN
Content-Type: application/json

Endpoints

The table below is representative, not exhaustive. AI endpoints are metered and may return 402 when your monthly allowance is exhausted.

Generate Protocol Request Body

{
  "researchGoal": "Investigate whether KRAS G12C knockout...",
  "field": "Oncology",
  "experimentType": "Gene editing (CRISPR)",
  "equipment": ["Flow cytometer", "PCR machine", "Western blot"],
  "budget": "Moderate ($10k–$50k)",
  "timeframe": "1–2 months"
}

Generate Protocol Response

{
  "protocol": {
    "id": "uuid",
    "title": "CRISPR-Cas9 Knockout of KRAS G12C...",
    "field": "Oncology",
    "score_feasibility": 91,
    "score_controls": 88,
    "score_reproducibility": 85,
    "score_clarity": 94,
    "sections": {
      "objective": "...",
      "hypothesis": "...",
      "design": "...",
      "materials": [...],
      "procedure": [...],
      "variables": {...},
      "controls": "...",
      "expected": "...",
      "quality": "...",
      "safety": "..."
    },
    "created_at": "2026-05-08T..."
  }
}