Guides
Reference material for AI Bootcamp and beyond
Deeper dives on the topics we only touch briefly in the workshop. Read whichever ones are relevant to you. Come back to them after the workshop when you’re trying something on your own project.
Getting Oriented
Tip
If you’ve never used a terminal, start here.
- Terminal Basics — What a terminal is, the ten commands you actually need, and how to stop being afraid of it. Includes MIT Missing Semester links.
- Writing a CLAUDE.md — The single most important file in any Claude Code project. Templates for research and writing projects. With Blattman’s annotated examples.
Working with AI Agents
- Prompting Claude Code — Three properties of a good prompt, bad-vs-good examples for economists, a starter prompt library you can copy-paste.
- Context Windows — Claude has a working memory of ~500 pages. Why that’s less than you think, and how to manage it.
- Data Privacy — How to use Claude Code with confidential, NDA, or GDPR-sensitive data without exposing it.
Tools & Infrastructure
- Git & GitHub Basics — What Git actually is (spoiler: not Dropbox), and why you don’t need to learn commands. With MIT Missing Semester video.
- Costs & Subscriptions — Claude Pro vs Max vs API. What a typical hour of coding costs. Institutional options.
Going Deeper After the Workshop
Three resources worth following:
- claudeblattman.com — A senior political economist at UChicago with no coding background built a complete AI workflow system in three months. Free, MIT-licensed. Start with Chatbots Done Right.
- Goldsmith-Pinkham’s substack — Running series on AI tools for empirical research. Start with Getting Started with Claude Code.
- Cunningham’s Claude Code series — 36+ posts documenting daily use for empirical econometrics, including honest public self-corrections.
Quick Reference
| I want to… | Read this |
|---|---|
| Open a terminal for the first time | Terminal Basics |
| Understand what CLAUDE.md does | Writing a CLAUDE.md |
| Write better prompts | Prompting Claude Code |
| Use Claude Code with confidential data | Privacy |
| Learn Git in 10 minutes | Git & GitHub Basics |
| Decide which subscription to get | Costs |
| Figure out why Claude is getting slower | Context Windows |
| Build a real AI workflow system | claudeblattman.com |