2. Working with Claude

Kerry Back
Faculty Workshop
Rice Business 2026

Workshop Overview

AUG 103:00–4:00Intro to Claude

AUG 113:00–4:00Working with Claude

AUG 123:00–4:00Teaching Tools

AUG 133:00–4:00AI Tutors

AUG 143:00–4:00Student Projects

AUG 173:00–4:00AI for Research

AUG 193:00–4:00Personal Assistants

AUG 194:00–5:00Overflow/Extra

Today’s Session

Academic Studio

The Command Line

CLAUDE.md and Skills

Claude as an Assistant

PowerPoint

Academic Studio

File Explorer and Search

Reach the File Explorer tool from the left toolbar.

Files

Right-click to rename, copy, …
Double-click to open in Academic Studio viewer
Viewer provides different options for different file types (cannot edit Office docs)

The magnifying glass searches inside every file in the folder at once
Options for case, whole word, and regular expressions
Replace across all files from the same pane

Useful Features

Claude icon on top right

Open a new conversation
Can run multiple conversations simultaneously

Extensions in left toolbar

Many VS Codium extensions to choose from
Some are pre-installed

Remote SSH in left toolbar

Connect to jgsrc1 or a different remote server
Files and code execution on remote server. Academic Studio runs on your computer.

Permissions

Some Claude Commands

Command	What it does
/resume	a version of Claude/Conversations
/model	select from Fable, Opus (default), Sonnet, and Haiku
/clear	clear the context window (= new conversation)
/compact	summarize the conversation in a text file, launch a new conversation that reads the text file
Esc	escape key interrupts Claude, which then waits for new instructions

File View and Edit

Extract and double-click files in session2.zip/sample_files
Need different extensions installed for different filetypes (use Run Setup)
Office docs are read only

.py is a Python script, .ipynb is a Jupyter notebook
.tex builds with ‘Play’ button, .qmd builds with Preview button
.html toggles between editable text (HTML code) and browser-view with globe button
.md toggles between editable text (Markdown code) and rendered view with pencil button

Fit with VS Code

Independent apps, individual extensions and settings
They share Claude — same CLAUDE.md, same skills, same conversation history
Example: Work on project in Academic Studio. Then open in VS Code. /resume brings up conversation history from Academic Studio.

The Command Line

Using a Terminal (Command Line)

Windows: Command Prompt, Windows PowerShell, Windows Terminal
Mac Terminal
Open. Then type commands. Syntax must be right (not intelligent)

What Claude Can Do at the Command Line

File operations

Move, copy, rename, delete, search within.

Find all files in my Documents folder that discuss … and move them to …

Install and run software

Run a python script, build a LaTeX doc, …

Interact with external services

Command Line Interfaces (CLIs): gh for GitHub, aws for Amazon Web Services, … Also, use APIs.

More Things Claude Can Do at the Command Line

pandoc — convert between Word, Markdown, HTML, PDF

ImageMagick — resize, crop, convert images in bulk

ffmpeg — trim video, transcode, pull the audio out

ripgrep — search thousands of files in seconds

cron — run a command on a schedule

Example: Git (Search the Past)

Git is a version control system. A commit records the current state of a folder (repository=repo). Git is not AI. Git existed long before AI. But AI knows Git.

Tell Claude

Install Git. Commit this folder to Git.

Frequently, thereafter, tell Claude to commit changes.

At some point, you realize that you want to recover something from a version that was overwritten sometime in the past:

Tell Claude

Find a prior version of … that said … Add that to the current version.

CLAUDE.md and Skills

CLAUDE.md

Where Claude Looks

At the start of each conversation, Claude looks in specific places for CLAUDE.md files
It looks in your home directory (C:\users\yourname on Windows) and it looks in the project folder

What It Is

A CLAUDE.md is a text file that contains instructions for Claude
Claude reads the entire file, so use it sparingly

You could get the same behavior by pasting the instructions in the prompt window

Skills

At Startup

At the start of each conversation, Claude also looks in specific places for SKILL.md files

Two Locations

It looks in your home directory (C:\users\yourname on Windows) and it looks in the project folder

Loaded on Demand

Skills are text files saved on your hard drive. Claude reads the top of each SKILL.md file on startup, and it reads the bulk of the file only when needed

Installing Skills

Where to Find Them

There are thousands of skills published on the internet.
Anthropic publishes skills (xlsx, etc.) at https://github.com/anthropics/skills/

Ask Claude

To search for skills, ask Claude. To install a skill you want, ask Claude.
Other than a few of Anthropic’s skills, the most useful skills are generally those you create, because they are customized to your work.

Example: xlsx Skill

The xlsx, docx, and pptx skills are created by Anthropic and come pre-installed with Claude Desktop

Some Other Examples

I’ve looked at several skill repos for business/economics research. Most are not useful. Here are a couple I’ve adopted — by Lu Han, Bank of Canada.

Econ Writing: tells Claude to follow Cochrane’s Writing Tips for PhD Students and some other style guides
Econ Paper Review: writes a referee report on your paper

Give Claude the links and ask Claude to install them if you want to try them out.

Creating Skills

Iterate

Usual process is you work on something, iterating until you get what you want.

Recognize

You realize you may want the same thing again, and you don’t want to go through the iteration again.

Save the Recipe

Solution: tell Claude to save the satisfactory method (recipe) as a skill. Can save your result along with the skill as an example to follow if useful.

Invoking Skills

Slash Command

Type /skillname at the prompt
Example: /plan
Invokes the skill directly

Natural Language

Describe what you need in plain English
Example: “Use your planning mode and evaluate …”

Automatic

Claude may invoke a skill on its own
Example: “Create an Excel file” triggers the xlsx skill automatically
Driven by the skill’s description

Example: Create and Invoke

Create

Tell Claude to create a skill for your folder named “pirate” with this content: “Always answer like a pirate”

Invoke

Start a new conversation. Enter /pirate What is the meaning of life?

Inspect

Ask Claude to show you the pirate SKILL.md

Claude as an Assistant

What can Claude Do?

Draft slides
Assist with editing slides
Generate images and tables for slides
Do web research for slides
Draft quizzes and assignments

Assist with grading
Draft emails to students
Help create async materials
Write cases
Build tutors

PowerPoint Assistant

Using a Deck as a Template

Claude can read a deck, save images and other assets, and use them to create new decks in the same style. Here is an example.

SamplePresentation.pptx is a Microsoft sample
I asked Claude to remake tesla.pptx in that style
The first draft: tesla1.pptx
The second draft: tesla2.pptx

Create a Skill for PowerPoint

Save the Recipe

Once Claude has been successful at creating decks in your preferred style, ask Claude to save the recipe as a skill.

What Gets Saved

Claude will save images, layout guides, etc. from the doc you gave it along with the fonts that best match the doc (maybe not exact match) for reuse.

Isn’t This Just a PowerPoint Template?

Partly, yes — and a good skill does not replace the template.

What the Template Already Does

Fonts, colors, layouts, placeholder positions, the scenery. A designed .pptx is already a style kit.

A good skill uses it — filling that template’s own layouts instead of drawing shapes.

What the Skill Adds

Which layout for which kind of content
How much text fits in each placeholder
What to do when nothing fits — a wide chart, a long table

A template guides a person, who sees the result and adjusts. A skill guides Claude, which cannot.

Claude in PowerPoint

In May, 2026, the Claude add-in for PowerPoint became generally available (for paid accounts). But I don’t think Rice has authorized it for our Microsoft 365 accounts.

The advantages would be (1) just one window open, (2) no save/close/reopen.

Tips for Your Skill

Save and close first

Include in your skill: Save and close any open PowerPoint deck before editing it. Re-open after editing.

Claude cannot see your slides

Claude cannot natively view PowerPoint slides to examine whether things are properly located. It goes PPTX → PDF → PNG.

The route matters

If left to its own devices, it may choose an inferior PPTX → PDF route (LibreOffice = open-source version of MS Office)

When Claude creates your skill, ask it about using AppleScript (Mac) or COM automation (Windows)

One More Tip

Sometimes multiple skills compete for the same job.

The collision

Anthropic’s pptx skill triggers on any PowerPoint file, so a skill of your own for your desired style will collide with it. Things compound if you create multiple skills for multiple styles.

The fix

Ask Claude to edit your CLAUDE.md to settle the precedence.

Exercises

Tell Claude to install Git and to initialize your project folder as a Git repo and to commit. Make some changes, commit again, and ask about restoring the prior version.
Pick a deck you want to refresh. Ask Claude to read it and offer suggestions on content, organization, and style. Ask Claude to edit some slides and to draft some slides, saving changes in a new name.
Create a skill for Claude to write slides in your desired style. Inspect the skill (if global, it is in $HOME/.claude/skills; if local, it is in your project folder .claude/skills)

Takeaways

Claude can work alongside you on whatever you’re working on. Get advice and suggestions. Hand over the tedious part of the work. Save good workflows as skills so they can be easily repeated.