Advanced prompt engineering for journalists — starter kit

A starter repo for the Knight Center MOOC on using AI coding tools from the command line. Fork this repo, clone your fork, cd into it, and run claude. Everything you need for the four modules is already here.

Course site: mooc.amditis.tech

Instructor

Joe Amditis | Center for Cooperative Media, Montclair State University

GitHub | Substack | Twitter

What this repo is

Your workspace for all four modules. By the end of the course, it'll be a working AI-assisted journalism toolkit you've filled in with your own beat details — documented, version-controlled, and shareable.

• A context file scaffold (CLAUDE.md) with teaching comments and a fully worked example
• Memory and lessons files (MEMORY.md, LESSONS.md) showing the patterns from video A2
• Real Claude Code skills (skills/) with YAML frontmatter — the shape from video B1
• Slash commands (.claude/commands/) for beat briefings, SIFT-based claim checks, and cross-model review
• A one-way-door hook (.claude/hooks.json) — the guardrail pattern
• A minimal plugin skeleton (plugin/) — the shape from video B2
• Staged pipeline scripts (scripts/pipeline/) — the fetch → clean → process → save pattern
• A GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/weekly-digest.yml) — the cloud-detect side of the hybrid pattern
• Module 4 documentation (docs/context-management.md, docs/cross-model-review.md, docs/four-questions.md)
• A worked mini example (examples/mamdani-mini/) — the shape of the video B1 pipeline demo with synthetic data
• Sample journalism documents (sample-docs/) — fictional Greenfield city council beat fixtures
• Stubs for Codex and Gemini users (AGENTS.md, GEMINI.md) — if you're not using Claude

Everything in the repo maps to a specific module and video in docs/module-map.md. Start there if you want the index.

Getting started

1. Fork this repo

Click Fork at the top right of the GitHub page. That gives you your own copy you can push to freely.

2. Clone your fork

git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/mooc-starter-kit.git
cd mooc-starter-kit

Replace YOUR-USERNAME with your GitHub username.

3. Install one AI CLI tool

You need Node.js (version 20+) and one of these:

The course exercises are shown in Claude Code. The patterns work in all three tools. If you're using Codex, see AGENTS.md. If you're using Gemini, see GEMINI.md.

4. Run it

cd mooc-starter-kit
claude

Your first session should be boring on purpose — say hi, type /init (if you're in Claude Code) and see what it does, read CLAUDE.md, and then pick up the Module 1 exercise on the course site.

Which module uses what

See docs/module-map.md for the full file-to-video index.

What's in each folder

mooc-starter-kit/
|
|-- CLAUDE.md                   Project context scaffold (Module 1)
|-- MEMORY.md                   Memory index: four memory types
|-- LESSONS.md                  Rolling log where corrections become rules
|-- AGENTS.md                   Codex users read this
|-- GEMINI.md                   Gemini users read this
|
|-- sample-docs/                Greenfield city council beat fixtures
|   |-- council-minutes-excerpt.md
|   |-- press-release-park-closure.md
|   |-- interview-notes-martinez.md
|   |-- tip-email.md
|   |-- viral-claim-example.md
|   |-- sample-article.html
|   +-- sample-transcript.txt
|
|-- .claude/                    Commands and hooks Claude Code auto-loads
|   |-- commands/
|   |   |-- beat-brief.md       /beat-brief
|   |   |-- cross-review.md     /cross-review
|   |   +-- verify-claim.md     /verify-claim
|   |-- hooks.json              One-way-door guardrail
|   +-- hooks.md                What the hook is for
|
|-- skills/                     Real Claude Code skills (Module 2)
|   |-- newsroom-style/
|   |   +-- SKILL.md
|   +-- first-skill/
|       +-- SKILL.md
|
|-- plugin/                     Minimal plugin skeleton (Module 2)
|   |-- plugin.json
|   +-- skills/
|       +-- beat-brief/
|           +-- SKILL.md
|
|-- scripts/
|   |-- pipeline/               Staged pipeline (Module 3)
|   |   |-- 01-fetch.sh
|   |   |-- 02-clean.sh
|   |   |-- 03-process.sh
|   |   |-- 04-save.sh
|   |   |-- run-all.sh
|   |   +-- README.md
|   +-- legacy/                 The "before" version of the scripts
|       |-- summarize-article.sh
|       |-- batch-process.sh
|       +-- README.md
|
|-- .github/workflows/
|   |-- weekly-digest.yml       Scheduled pipeline (Module 3, video C2)
|   +-- README.md
|
|-- examples/
|   |-- worked-claude-md/       A fully filled-in CLAUDE.md example
|   |   +-- CLAUDE.md
|   |-- mamdani-mini/           The video B1 pipeline shape, synthetic data
|   |   |-- README.md
|   |   |-- sample-data/
|   |   |-- prompts/
|   |   +-- dashboard-skeleton.html
|   +-- rag-archive/            Optional: local RAG over your own docs
|       +-- README.md
|
|-- mcp-configs/                Optional advanced: MCP examples
|   |-- README.md
|   +-- filesystem-example.json
|
|-- docs/
|   |-- module-map.md           File-to-video index
|   |-- context-management.md   Module 4: /effort, /context, /compact, sub-agents
|   |-- cross-model-review.md   Module 4: Copilot CLI and Codex with -p
|   |-- four-questions.md       Module 4: tool selection framework
|   +-- superpowers/specs/      Design docs for the kit itself
|
+-- og-image.png                Social preview

Related repositories

• Journalism skills library — 50+ pre-built Claude Code skills for journalism (source verification, FOIA requests, data journalism, editorial workflows, newsroom style, web archiving, and more) plus more than a dozen workflow hooks. Browse for ideas or install the whole library.
• NICAR 2026: Skills in Codex and Claude — Aaron Kessler's NICAR session repo. Examples of building and using skills across Claude Code and Codex CLI for data journalism.
• AI tools for newsrooms — A curated collection of AI tools and resources for journalists and newsrooms.
• skills.amditis.tech — Browsable catalog of Joe's skills and plugins, including the ones demoed in the course videos.
• tools.amditis.tech — Joe's working list of AI tools for journalists.

License

Course materials are licensed under CC BY 4.0. You may share and adapt for any purpose with attribution.

Attribution: Joe Amditis, Center for Cooperative Media, Montclair State University. Course hosted by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin.