Academic Research Skills for Claude Code: Install & Workflow
The academic-research-skills plugin (Imbad0202/academic-research-skills on GitHub): deep research, literature review, paper writing, citation checks, and peer review for Claude Code — with a project brief that keeps every /ars command on-topic.
Most AI research help falls apart at the citations: a confident paragraph built on a paper that doesn't exist. Academic Research Skills runs research, writing, and review as one pipeline that stops for your confirmation at every stage and checks every reference before a draft leaves your hands.
Who it's for: graduate students writing a thesis or dissertation, PhD candidates preparing journal articles, researchers running literature reviews or systematic reviews, supervisors who want a repeatable review step, academics in any discipline using Claude Code
Example
"/ars-plan — I'm studying how four-day school weeks affect student attendance in rural US districts" → Socratic planning session that sharpens the research question, then /ars-lit-review builds a thematic review with verified citations in APA 7, and /ars-review returns a multi-perspective critique before submission
CLAUDE.md Template
New here? 3-minute setup guide → | Already set up? Copy the template below.
npx ccplaybooks add academic-research-skills# Research Project — Academic Research Skills Workspace
This project uses the **Academic Research Skills** plugin for Claude Code
by Cheng-I Wu ([github.com/Imbad0202/academic-research-skills](https://github.com/Imbad0202/academic-research-skills),
CC BY-NC 4.0). This file does not contain the plugin itself — it gives
Claude the standing context for this research project so every `/ars-*`
command starts from the same brief.
## Setup (once)
Install the plugin from inside Claude Code:
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What This Does
Academic Research Skills is an open-source Claude Code plugin by Cheng-I Wu that covers the research-to-publication pipeline: planning, deep research, literature review, drafting, citation verification, peer review, and revision. It ships four skills (deep-research, academic-paper, academic-paper-reviewer, academic-pipeline) exposed as /ars-* slash commands.
It's built human-in-the-loop: the pipeline pauses for your confirmation at each stage, and the author describes it as a copilot rather than an autopilot.
This playbook's download is not a copy of the plugin. It's a project CLAUDE.md you fill in once (research question, discipline, citation style, scope, venue) so every /ars-* command in that folder starts from the same brief, plus a set of project rules around checkpoints and citations.
Quick Start
Step 1: Install the Plugin
Inside Claude Code:
/plugin marketplace add Imbad0202/academic-research-skills
/plugin install academic-research-skills
The plugin method needs a recent Claude Code version. The repository's README lists the full requirements, including optional tools for DOCX and PDF export (Pandoc, tectonic).
Step 2: Create a Project Folder and Add the Brief
mkdir -p ~/Research/MyThesis
mv ~/Downloads/CLAUDE.md ~/Research/MyThesis/
Open CLAUDE.md and fill in the Project brief section.
Step 3: Start with a Plan
cd ~/Research/MyThesis
claude
Run /ars-plan and describe your topic. Once the plan is settled, move to /ars-lit-review or /ars-research.
The Commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/ars-plan |
Socratic dialogue to map the research structure |
/ars-lit-review |
Literature review |
/ars-research |
Full deep-research stage |
/ars-outline |
Paper structure planning |
/ars-write |
Draft sections or a full paper |
/ars-citation-check |
Verify citations |
/ars-review |
Multi-perspective peer review |
/ars-revision |
Work through review comments |
/ars-pipeline |
End-to-end orchestration with checkpoints |
Citation styles: APA 7 (default), Chicago (notes and author-date), MLA, IEEE, Vancouver.
Tips
- Fill in the scope limits. Years, populations, and study types in and out of scope are what keep the literature search from sprawling.
- Run the citation check before every handoff, not just before submission. A bad reference found in chapter two is cheaper than one found by your examiner.
- Use
/ars-reviewas a pre-supervisor pass. It catches structural and argument issues so meetings can focus on substance. - Keep
decisions.mdhonest. Excluded sources and the reason for excluding them are what a methods section and a viva will ask about.
Limitations
- It checks what you report, not what you did. The plugin can't confirm a method was actually carried out or that data is authentic.
- Outputs aren't byte-for-byte reproducible, so save the drafts you keep.
- License: the plugin is CC BY-NC 4.0 (non-commercial use, attribution required). Check your use fits before building it into paid work.
- Institutional rules apply. Many universities require disclosure of AI assistance in theses and papers.