---
title: "Paper hierarchy"
description: "Which AI, systems, RL, and inference papers to read first, what each one unlocks, and the prerequisites drawn in. Free map; Fanout guides are Pro."
canonical_url: "https://fanout.sh/papers"
md_url: "https://fanout.sh/papers.md"
access: "public"
---

# Paper hierarchy

Which AI, systems, RL, and inference papers to read first, what each one unlocks, and the prerequisites drawn in. Free map; Fanout guides are Pro.

## Public overview

Four tracks: AI research, Systems, Reinforcement learning, and Inference engineering. Each is a top-down reading order where every row can be read once the rows above it are done.

Papers with a Fanout guide open the Daily explainer; the rest open the source.

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This representation contains public Fanout content only. Protected Pro lessons, account data, billing, checkout, and pricing are not included.

Browse the public content map: https://fanout.sh/sitemap.md