Academic Studio

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Academic Studio is designed for business professionals, students, faculty, and researchers. It bundles Claude Code with other useful tools. It is an easy-to-use and easy-to-install version of Claude Code in VS Code, which is a powerful framework for building things with AI. A paid Anthropic account (Pro, Max, or API) is required to use Claude Code. Enter /login in the prompt window on first use to connect to your Anthropic account.

Under the hood Academic Studio is VS Code (via the open-source VSCodium), so it will feel familiar if you’ve used VS Code — but it’s simplified for getting work done:

  • Claude Code is built-in and opens on startup.
  • A top-level Claude menu is provided to assist users in working with Claude.
  • Menus and toolbars are trimmed, with beginner-friendly defaults.
  • The Help menu is completely rebuilt.
  • Important tools are easily installed — Office Viewer, PDF, Quarto, Python, Jupyter, R, LaTeX, Node.js.

Features

  • Claude Code, built in. The Claude Code assistant opens automatically and works alongside your files. Ask it to write, analyze data, build slides, or create documents.
  • Real documents. Claude can create and edit Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files using Anthropic’s document skills (xlsx, docx, pptx, pdf), which come bundled with Academic Studio and are set up automatically — no configuration needed. It also works with LaTeX and Quarto for typeset documents.
  • Web browsing. Claude can open and drive a web browser — visit pages, click through them, fill in forms, and take screenshots — through the Playwright browser connector, which Academic Studio sets up for you automatically. Useful for gathering information from websites and for checking that pages Claude builds for you actually work.
  • A workspace, not just a chat. Open a folder and your files and your conversation history live with that project — your work persists.
  • Use — or have Claude use — Python, Jupyter, R, LaTeX, and Quarto for data analysis, statistics, typesetting, and document creation.
  • Easy setup. Help → Run Setup… lets you pick your profile (Faculty or Students & Professionals), and install supporting programs (Python, Node.js, Quarto, R, TinyTeX) and extensions with one click.
  • Key Python libraries — the scientific stack and libraries to create Office documents — are installed with Python.
  • Shares skills, connectors, and CLAUDE.md files with Claude Code CLI and the Code mode of Claude Desktop; conversation history is shared with the CLI.
  • Help → Academic Studio Help provides instructions for getting started with LaTeX, Quarto, etc.
  • All Claude skills, connectors, and plugins work in Academic Studio. Plugins created by the author are linked in the navigation bar above and have simplified install methods in Academic Studio. The voiceover plugin runs entirely inside Academic Studio but opens a separate browser tab in VS Code, Claude Code CLI, etc.

Downloads

macOS (Apple Silicon) — M1 or later; does not run on older Macs with Intel chips

Windows — for most Windows computers (x64)

Windows ARM — Microsoft Surface Pro and other Windows ARM computers

All releases are available on the GitHub Releases page.