Claude Code Academic Workflow Guide

Overview

A template and workflow guide for using Claude Code in academic research — managing LaTeX papers, Beamer presentations, R analysis scripts, and multi-agent peer review. Provides structured CLAUDE.md configurations, project templates, and automation patterns for common academic tasks. Designed for economists, social scientists, and quantitative researchers.

Project Structure

research-project/
├── CLAUDE.md              # Claude Code instructions
├── paper/
│   ├── main.tex           # Main LaTeX document
│   ├── references.bib     # Bibliography
│   ├── sections/          # LaTeX sections
│   └── figures/           # Generated figures
├── slides/
│   ├── presentation.tex   # Beamer slides
│   └── figures/
├── code/
│   ├── analysis.R         # Main analysis
│   ├── data_clean.R       # Data preparation
│   └── figures.R          # Figure generation
├── data/
│   ├── raw/               # Original data
│   └── processed/         # Cleaned data
└── output/
    ├── tables/            # LaTeX tables
    └── figures/           # PDF/PNG figures

CLAUDE.md Configuration

# Project: [Your Paper Title]

## Instructions
- This is an academic research project in economics
- LaTeX compiler: pdflatex (paper) or xelatex (if CJK)
- R version: 4.3+ with tidyverse, fixest, ggplot2
- Citation style: natbib, authoryear
- Always compile paper after LaTeX changes
- Run R scripts from project root

## Paper Conventions
- Use \input{sections/intro} for section includes
- Tables: booktabs package, generated from R
- Figures: PDF format, width=\textwidth
- Cross-refs: \label{sec:}, \label{tab:}, \label{fig:}

## R Conventions
- Style: tidyverse style guide
- Data: read from data/processed/
- Output: tables/ (LaTeX), figures/ (PDF)
- Reproducibility: set.seed(42) for all random ops

## Build Commands
- Paper: `cd paper && pdflatex main && bibtex main && pdflatex main && pdflatex main`
- Slides: `cd slides && pdflatex presentation`
- Analysis: `cd code && Rscript analysis.R`

LaTeX Paper Workflow

# Claude Code can manage the full LaTeX workflow:

# 1. Draft a section
# "Write the methodology section for our diff-in-diff analysis"

# 2. Generate tables from R output
# "Create a LaTeX table from the regression results in output/tables/"

# 3. Fix compilation errors
# "The paper won't compile — fix the LaTeX errors"

# 4. Update bibliography
# "Add the Callaway & Sant'Anna (2021) reference"

# 5. Format for submission
# "Format the paper for AER submission guidelines"