by jamditis
Claude Code skills for journalism, media, and academia - verification, FOIA, data journalism, academic writing, and more
# Add to your Claude Code skills
git clone https://github.com/jamditis/claude-skills-journalismGuides for using data processing skills like claude-skills-journalism.
A curated collection of Claude Code skills designed for journalists, researchers, academics, media professionals, and communications practitioners.
Docs site: skills.amditis.tech — interactive skill browser, setup guides, and full documentation.
Setup and workflow guides, separate from the skills themselves:
| Guide | Description | |-------|-------------| | Persistent sessions | Keep Claude Code sessions alive through disconnects using tmux — setup, key bindings, activity notifications, and scheduler coexistence |
Skills are modular instruction sets that extend Claude's capabilities for specialized tasks. Each skill contains domain-specific knowledge, workflows, templates, and best practices that Claude loads automatically when relevant to your work.
Prerequisite: You need Claude Code installed. Run claude --version in your terminal to check.
Plugins give you slash commands you can run directly inside Claude Code. Run these two commands in your terminal:
claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/jamditis/claude-skills-journalism
claude plugin install pdf-playground@claude-skills-journalism
Then restart Claude Code (close and reopen). See the PDF Playground README for detailed setup instructions and troubleshooting.
Available plugins:
| Plugin | Description | Commands | |--------|-------------|----------| | autocontext | Cross-session knowledge persistence with skill evolution. Lessons accumulate per-skill, and folds them back into skill files | , , , , | | | Ten development-focused skills for journalists, researchers, and small newsroom dev teams: accessibility (WCAG 2.2), Electron app patterns, mobile/remote debugging, irreversible-decision discipline, Python data pipelines, test-first bug fixing, AI-assisted development workflows, ethical web scraping, no-build frontend patterns, and signs-of-taste guidance for web UI | n/a — skills only | | | Thirteen core journalism skills, including AP-style writing, AI-slop detoxing, source verification (deepfakes/C2PA), FOIA + NJ OPRA requests, fact-checking, interview prep + transcription, story pitches, editorial workflow, crisis communications, and newsletter publishing with current Gmail / Yahoo / Outlook bulk-sender requirements | n/a — skills only | | | PDF report and proposal design system with brand variables, budget tables, and reusable content blocks (stats strips, three-column, four-tile pillars, partner grids) | n/a — skill-only | | | Create branded proposals, reports, one-pagers, newsletters, slides, and event materials with an interactive control panel for live design editing (colors, fonts, spacing, sections) and a guided wizard for proposals | , , , , , , | | | Three skills for setting up and closing out journalism projects: a CLAUDE.md project-memory writer (institutional knowledge), a LESSONS.md retrospective writer (failures and decisions), and a template-selector decision tree across 6 project types | n/a — skills only | | | Six skills for research, source preservation, and academic workflows: academic writing, legal paywall-bypass via Unpaywall and library databases, web archiving (Wayback / Archive.today / ArchiveBox), web page change monitoring, AI-enriched digital archive construction, and a curated free-API catalog with sunset currency notes (IEX Cloud, CrowdTangle, ProPublica Congress, X, Reddit) | n/a — skills only | | | Four defensive security skills covering OWASP Top 10 fundamentals and supply-chain hardening: pre-deployment audit checklists (auth, input validation, secrets management), secure authentication patterns (password hashing, session management, JWT, OAuth, passkeys), API hardening (rate limiting, CORS, request throttling, defense-in-depth for Express, FastAPI, and serverless), and npm/bun supply-chain hardening with install-time cooldown plus a sandboxed pre-install scan for the bypass case (defends against Mini Shai-Hulud-class worms) | | | | Research-augmented fork of obra/superpowers. Default-on research phase fires before brainstorming, systematic-debugging, and writing-skills. v1.0.0 ships all 14 skills with no soft dependencies on the upstream plugin | invoked indirectly via skills (e.g. , , ) | | | HTML diagrams, data tables, architecture views, slide decks, and KPI dashboards adapted from nicobailon/visual-explainer with journalism, newsroom, and academic design sensibilities | |
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/autocontext:evolve/autocontext:setup/autocontext:init/autocontext:review/autocontext:status/autocontext:evolve/pdf-playground:proposal/pdf-playground:report/pdf-playground:onepager/pdf-playground:newsletter/pdf-playground:slides/pdf-playground:event/pdf-playground:preview/security-toolkit:hotpatchsuperpowerssuperjawn:brainstormingsuperjawn:systematic-debuggingsuperjawn:writing-plans/visual-explainer:project-recapEvery skill in this repo now lives inside a plugin's skills/ directory. To install just one without taking the whole plugin, clone the repo and copy or symlink the nested skill folder. Claude Code discovers skills at ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md — one level deep:
git clone https://github.com/jamditis/claude-skills-journalism.git ~/projects/claude-skills-journalism
cd ~/projects/claude-skills-journalism
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
# Pull a single skill out of a plugin's skills/ directory:
cp -r journalism-core/skills/source-verification ~/.claude/skills/
cp -r research-toolkit/skills/free-apis-catalog ~/.claude/skills/
cp -r research-toolkit/skills/web-archiving ~/.claude/skills/
cp -r dev-toolkit/skills/web-scraping ~/.claude/skills/
cp -r security-toolkit/skills/secure-auth ~/.claude/skills/
cp -r project-templates-toolkit/skills/project-memory ~/.claude/skills/
# Or symlink so git pull updates them in place (ln -sfn replaces an existing link):
ln -sfn "$PWD/research-toolkit/skills/free-apis-catalog" ~/.claude/skills/free-apis-catalog
Do not clone the repo directly into ~/.claude/skills/journalism-skills/ — that nests each SKILL.md too deep and Claude Code won't find them.
Skills can be added via the Claude.ai interface under Settings > Skills.
journalism-core plugin)These thirteen skills ship together as the journalism-core plugin. Install via /plugin install journalism-core@claude-skills-journalism to get all of them at once.
| Skill | Description | |-------|-------------| | ai-writing-detox | Eliminate AI-generated patterns that erode reader trust. Banned words, phrases, and structures with alternatives | | crisis-communications | Breaking news protocol, rapid verification, crisis response, misinformation countering | | data-journalism | Dataset analysis, chart and map creation, statistical reasoning, data-driven story structure | | editorial-workflow | Story assignment tracking, deadline management, editorial calendars, handoff protocols | | fact-check-workflow | Claim extraction, evidence gathering, rating scales, correction protocols | | foia-requests | Public records request drafting (federal FOIA + NJ OPRA), tracking, appeals, current statutory citations | | interview-prep | Pre-interview research, question frameworks, recording consent, attribution guidelines | | interview-transcription | Whisper / WhisperX transcription pipelines, quote management, speaker diarization | | newsletter-publishing | Email newsletter creation, subscriber management, deliverability, 2024–2026 Gmail / Yahoo / Outlook bulk-sender compliance | | newsroom-style | AP Style enforcement, attribution rules, headline formatting, number conventions | | social-media-intelligence | Narrative tracking, coordinated-campaign analysis, account authenticity checks, OSINT for digital investigations | | source-verification | SIFT method, image and video verification, deepfake detection (2026), C2PA Content Credentials, verification trails | | story-pitch | Pitch templates for daily news, features, investigations, op-eds, and freelance queries |
research-toolkit plugin)These six skills ship together as the research-toolkit plugin. Install via /plugin install research-toolkit@claude-skills-journalism to get all of them at once.
| Skill | Description | |-------|-------------| | academic-writing | Research design, literature reviews, IMRaD structure, peer review responses, grant proposals | | content-access | Unpaywall, CORE, Semantic Scholar APIs, library databases, ethical access patterns | | [digital-archive](./rese